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June 10, 2008
Going Home
I am going home at the end of the week, and I feel crazy.
I am so full of thoughts and feelings and worries and I just can't believe our first year here is over. I am excited to see the people at home who I love so much. I am completely terrified to feel all of the things I will feel when I go home.
I wish I could just live in the moment, but without consciously trying to do so, I visit these little visions in the future. In my mind I am driving up 273 from Newark and passing my house. I feel a physical pain in my heart and throat. The air is suffocating... so humid... and it is closing in all around me. My piano is in there. The porch swing. The stone fireplace. I ache for my home. There it is, but I cannot go in. Even if I could, it would hurt too much.
Out here in the Pacific Palisades, it is 68 degrees and the air is clear... and I run three miles, much of it uphill. The sun beats down on the top of my head, but I don't mind. It is dry here, but not too dry. Sweat drips into my eyes and my lips are salty. I keep running. I have always hated to run. But now I am able to breathe in deeply and slowly enough as I go. I am not gasping for my next breath. That makes all the difference. I can't believe that I, the one who hates to run, am actually running. I am doing it.
When I reach the top of my route, I turn and see the ocean. There is a part of me that doesn't want to leave here. I have carved out a place for myself, finally. I am so afraid to lose it. I am finally not miserable and lonely. I am afraid to lose the security I have started to feel out here.
I'm different now than I was when I left home. I'm afraid to lose that, too. I'm afraid to lose myself entirely, as I often do. I have started to develop some kind of a consistent self out here, and I fear to go back ... that I will unravel and leave the new pieces of this girl in dead brown grass and sweltering summer heat.
Posted by darby on June 10, 2008 12:44 AM
Comments
maybe, maybe...
Maybe home is you, and jase, and the kids. Maybe you are really visiting a place that was home, but isn't so much right now. It might be again, but not right now.
Maybe it would help to think of yourself as a visitor here, instead of yourself as going back here physically and emotionally. I wouldn't mind if you thought of here that way.
I love you Darbs, and I want you to be at peace even more than I want to see you. If maintaining peace means leaving a some roots in LA in order to guard your heart, I think that that is a good thing.
Posted by: peaj on June 10, 2008 09:21 AM
Thats tough. We had a similar dilemma when we moved back from Baltimore. We had carved out a good life there and in many ways I kind of wish we had stayed there, but we knew we had to move when we did. That probably doesn't help you too much, but thats the way we feel.
Posted by: Jason J on June 10, 2008 09:30 AM
Oh, Darb--I am so proud of you. For running, and being so healthy, and making all the new and wonderful friends you have made, and writing and playing your music. You are amazing. I am praying for you--that being back on the east coast will be a good thing...You know I love you and I only wish I could be there, too, when you get there.
Posted by: jessica on June 10, 2008 02:48 PM
It will be wonderful to see you. I will pray you have a great visit.
Posted by: KathieK on June 10, 2008 11:51 PM
D, I know coming back is bittersweet... The person you have become will push through the hard part and breathe deep... By the wayI know some great hills for running... with built in child care if you're interested...
Posted by: min on June 11, 2008 09:48 PM
Darby,
I hope that you can put me on your social calendar while you are home in Newark. I have so much to tell you. Not only do I continue to be a high-powered, very important business executive, but I have become even more handsome and debonaire than you remember. Let's have a few martinis and talk, shall we?
Posted by: Shawn Hanshew on June 12, 2008 03:17 PM
Darb - maybe since your time in LA isn't truly over yet - because you have another year to go - you are supposed to feel torn b/w staying there and coming back. I know it may sound cliche - but maybe it's all part of the process of this whole adventure. I agree w/ Shawn's comments though - let's meet to catch up this summer. I have missed you!
Posted by: murth on June 12, 2008 03:31 PM
I think that seeing your sisters, Merry in particular, will be so overwhelmingly happy for you, that you won't be able to have any bad feelings. God told me that.
Posted by: anonymous on June 12, 2008 04:15 PM
I think that seeing your best friends, Mindy in particular, will be so amazingly spectacular that any nervous feelings you might have been worried about will vanish.. especially as the races start around the kitchen track! God told ME that.
Posted by: Anonymous on June 12, 2008 09:55 PM
God's comments to people are making me laugh.... and so are Shawn Hanshew's... and everyone else's thoughtful insights are making my heart remember why I do love home... so many people I love are there.
Posted by: darby on June 13, 2008 12:12 AM
and...ah...the ones that may not be at home right now...you love those people, too...even if God didn't tell me that you do, I am pretty sure you do:-)
Posted by: jessica on June 13, 2008 05:37 AM
People need to be less fucking needy so that visiting them is less fucking stressful. God told me that.
Posted by: Holy Roller on June 23, 2008 01:54 PM
wow the holy roller is bringing the judgement straight from the mountain.
Posted by: jason on June 24, 2008 07:50 PM
And God sure is using colorful language these days!
Posted by: Jessica on June 25, 2008 03:59 AM
Surely Holyroller is not referring to moi as being needy.
Posted by: mers on June 30, 2008 09:43 AM
I love you Darby.
Posted by: God on July 3, 2008 03:17 PM
new post please
Posted by: fan from afar on July 17, 2008 05:05 PM