Thursday, May 24, 2007

3. Worse than Gone Forever

Remember that these posts show up latest first, so start at the bottom!

I know what you want to say to me.

Glenn, your problem is that you moved to often. For your whole life, you've never spent ten years living in the same city. If you had stayed put, you wouldn't feel so untethered now. Home would be home.

Except that you are wrong. It doesn't matter if you are moving or if you are staying put. The planet moves faster than you do.

For years, I assumed I would spend my whole life in Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz was home (more so than anyplace else before or since). But Santa Cruz -- the Santa Cruz that was my home -- is gone. It doesn't exist anymore. The Santa Cruz that was my home is the Santa Cruz where I would spend time with Scott and Daniel and Marty and Michael and Randy and Rich and Katie and Gayle and Ann and Phred and Melissa and Ricky. Look all you want, they aren't there. Before I left Santa Cruz, it left me.

But it's worse than gone. Because I can go to the place where it used to be, and what I will find there is this creepy doppelgänger of the place that was my home. It looks almost the same, but the loneliness is palpable. My chest tightens up any time I go there. If I hadn't left Santa Cruz, I would wake up with that haunted feeling every single day.

That is why it is best to keep moving. Stay a step ahead of the ghosts that are trying to haunt you until you get to your real home at last.

1 comment:

Michael said...

There's a sense where the magic is to find home where you are. Not in the "be happy with what you have and stop dreaming" sort of way, but more in the "The Kingdom of God is near" sort of way. The home we dream of will always be down the road, while at the same time it is made to magically appear right here when we are able to love.