One of my favorite movies is Garden State. It accurately describes a lot of feelings I have about life, people, and myself. Below is one of the many parts of the movie that I feel like I can deeply relate to.
You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone… You’ll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it’s gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It’s like you feel homesick for a place that doesn’t even exist. Maybe it’s like this rite of passage, you know. You won’t ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it’s like a cycle or something. I don’t know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that’s all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.
Everyday I feel like that is more and more true. There was a time when my apartment actually felt like home – but that was another time. Too much has happened here: fights, friendships ending, countless nights of being alone. It probably stopped feeling like home when my relationship stopped and just became a place for me to put my shit.
While I’ve moved on, the apartment never felt the same. Now it feels like a place to work and a place to sleep. There is no one there to make it special.
What I’m saying is, if I never came back to this specific house again, I wouldn’t care. I have no concept of home anymore.
The closest thing I have to “home” is my parents house. It’s where I feel the safest and where I feel the most loved. But even that isn’t home anymore. It will never be again. I’ll never be a 16 year old growing up under the wing of my parents. I’ll never be in a house with both my parents and siblings, and I’ll never have another shot to appreciate it more. It kind of just happened one day.
I believe I will have the chance to find what is “home”. I just need to fill it with the right vibe, and share it with the right person. I’m excited at that prospect.
