Nostalgia

It happens on my birthday, two years ago. I find myself at the dinner table with three of my four siblings; by some odd circumstance spouses are absent.  We lapse into our childhood, howling with laughter, recounting and redacting story after story, giving each other a hard time about past transgressions committed amid the omniscience and ignorance of youth.  We call my dad, of course he belongs here; he’s one of us. We wish we could call my mom.

It’s hard to describe, how we are transported to a sublime haven; it takes only the magic of speaking in the native tongue of memories made within the confines of our exclusive tribe to evoke these latent feelings.  We are home in every nuanced sense of the word.

Home is defined as a place of safety and security. We know what to expect here, how each member will react, respond and rejoice in us. Everything about home is unique to our clan. Our home has a scent, a look, a language, a culture, a sense of humor.  Here we have nicknames no one else calls us. Macaroni and cheese with scrambled eggs and sliced hotdogs is a meal combination.  On winter Sunday afternoons popcorn cooked over the stove in a blackened saucepan is dinner devoured in front of “Family Classics”. The slam of the screen door is familiar; we know how the remote control works. We know the certain way to turn the bathroom door handle to open it on a hot, sticky day, and can tell the stories of the ornaments we hang on the tree each Christmas.

And so when she suggests my boys are homesick I’m paying rapt attention.  She speaks of children of divorce, aching for the home they can never return to.  While the three of us may be surrounded by the same four walls, our interactions are forever altered; we become a different version of ourselves, to ourselves and to each other.

How do we miss this, what seems so obvious once it’s pointed out?  Why do we assume it’s possible to fully recover, and we’ll all just get over it with time?  Maybe it’s because we do, or we appear to anyway.  We adjust to our new normal.  Over time we fill the gaps as best we can; we begin to think less about what it used be and more about what it is.  And just when we think we might be feeling okay again, someone new enters the picture.

I don’t care how old we are, five or fifty-five, we all pause when we stumble upon the realization that mom or dad’s someone special isn’t leaving. It’s kind of like turning on a soap opera back in the day to hear a voice announcing the role of a beloved character is now being played by someone else.  Staring down evidence we can’t deny; the homesickness lying dormant within us makes a raging re-entrance we can’t articulate. There’s nothing wrong with this new person, in fact he’s probably pretty great, full of life, joy and possibility. He can be all kinds of wonderful things to us if only we let him. But first we need to address within ourselves that the one thing he can never be is the person who came before him. And while he may assume a similar role, we’ll never be able to recreate the same, exact version of home.

Is there a cure for homesickness?  I don’t know. I question whether we want one. Resisting change is inherent in our make-up. Homesickness is chronic, part of the human condition.  But what’s really wonderful is our resilience, and capacity to create new versions of home as loved ones move in and out of our lives.  This doesn’t happen overnight; it can’t be forced or willed. But its secret is simple:  When we remain true to ourselves, loving and honoring the one we’re with, the home can’t help but open up the doors and let us in.  What we want more than anything is for the members of our home to be loved and cared for. Someone who can do this belongs here.  This, after all, is what home is.