Friday, July 4, 2008

Is somebody homesick?

The other day, on the drive back from Ottawa, I had a terrible feeling in my stomach. The last time I had felt that feeling was on the final day of my solo-backpacking trip across Canada four years ago. The last time I had felt it before that was in elementary school when I went to my first sleepovers and couldn't handle it. It was homesickness.

For the last two months I've been in a state of limbo. My belongings have moved with me back to Brantford, but I haven't felt able to settle in there. I still live out of the cardboard box that I packed my clothes in. The majority of my time has been spent in Hamilton doing IV work and finishing school. Each morning when I wake up, I lack the knowledge of where I'm going to wake up the next morning.

Will it be at my parent's house? Will it be on a friend's couch or futon? Will it be in a car en route to some destination? What city will I be in?

The nomadic life used to be an ideal for me, but now I'm craving a place to call home and to root myself in. I think I would be able to handle this transient lifestyle as long as I knew which place I could always return to. But as of now, I don't know of any place.

I know there are lessons to be learned through this period of upheaval, but to be honest, it has been difficult to admit the allusion in my story to a far older story of one who could find no place to rest his head. But I think I need to admit it now, and then go and see what happened in that earlier context.

No comments: