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These Are Things I Think About
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I've written about the barometers for measuring adulthood before, but there's another hallmark of which I've recently become cognizant that I want to mention - when you can return to your childhood home, free of feelings of oppression and resentment, and appreciate it once more as the comfortable, safe haven it was in your youth.
Like most benchmarks of adulthood, this is not a one-size-fits-all deal. First, your childhood home had to be a place of safety and comfort to begin with, which unfortunately is not the case for everyone. Secondly, you have to be able to return to your home as an adult. Lastly, you need to work your way through any negative emotions associated with the home or people therein, which might be the hardest part of all. However, if all of these conditions exist, you might find yourself, like me, sitting in your childhood bedroom, stranded at your childhood home for the longest period of time since you graduated college, and strangely not all that fussed about it. In fact, maybe you're even a little bit happy. This is the latest odd turn of events in what has become something of an odyssey to get to my soon-to-be home of Los Angeles, CA. Having moved out of my Philadelphia apartment in November, but without a car to take me to LA for another week, and in the midst of the holiday season, there is no more logical place to be than the house in Hazleton, PA where I grew up. The fact that I'm grateful to be marooned in what I generally refer to as the armpit of the universe speaks volumes about how the wisdom that comes with experience can dramatically shift your perspective. First of all, I am finally able to appreciate how lucky and privileged I am to have the safety net of a familial home to return to in my time of need. Growing up in my middle-class, white privilege bubble, I took for granted that everyone had a supportive family they could count on, a comfortable place they could call home, and the security that that home would always be there. Ten years of living on my own, meeting people from all different backgrounds, and generally expanding my worldview taught me that this is not always the case, and I am extremely lucky. And that my luck is predicated on the luck, privilege, and planning of past generations of my family. To throw another literary reference in this post, no man (or woman or non-binary individual, thank you very much) is an island. Returning to my childhood home also means confronting and re-contextualizing the feelings of oppression, rebellion, hopelessness and insecurity that marked my teenage and young adult years. From about age 13 until I moved out for good at age 23, there was nothing I desired more than to leave Hazleton and never look back. My feelings about the town itself have not changed much; the prevailing political, cultural and social mileux in Hazleton are essentially the antithesis of every belief I hold. There will never be any love lost between me and a city known as "the town that hates Mexicans." But there was nothing objectively wrong with any aspect of my life - I had a loving family; all of my basic needs met, plus a variety of privileges; close friends; a decent education. And yet, to a strong-willed, independent, adventuresome, idealistic teenager like myself, all of these things seemed horribly restraining. I didn't want my parents' concern or guidance; it just felt like they were trying to tell me what to do. I didn't want their discipline; I could do whatever I wanted because I knew better than them. I didn't want their caution; they may have been afraid of everything, but I was brave and bold. I look at my bedroom's pale purple walls and remember when this room felt like a prison. There's the door that my father once threatened to remove if I slammed it one more time because, according to him, "There's no law that says you have to have a door." (I did not challenge him on that, because I knew he would do it. Mike Scatton did not fuck around.) There are all the Broadway and New York wall decorations, because that was where I was headed ASAP (the irony now being that I would lose my damn mind if I had to live in New York City. Eight million people in a little over 300 square miles is absurd, and I will fight all the New Yorkers who crawl out of their shoebox apartments to disagree with me). Of course you can go home again; just don't expect it to feel the same. That's not always a bad thing. As I prepare to embark on a 3,000 mile journey to a new home across the country, there's something apropos about being able to sit in "my bedroom" - a space me and my belongings have occupied for almost 34 years - and feel a sense of peace and closure within the walls. I can still feel that restless, ambitious, angsty teenager pacing the pink-carpeted floors - I honor her now by taking this leap and living out her wildest fantasies (well, some of them - her wildest fantasies typically involved being naked with Backstreet Boys). But I know this adventure wouldn't be possible without the support and security of the place and people she calls home, and for that, I'm grateful. If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.
I've been thinking of that phrase a lot in the last month or so, as one by one, my carefully-made plans for my cross-country move from Philadelphia to Los Angeles have unraveled or been derailed by unexpected obstacles. Make no mistake - I'm still going to LA. I signed a lease and put a deposit on an apartment, but more importantly, I visited LA a few weeks ago, and the diagnosis was irrefutable. I've got a fever, and the only cure is endless sunshine, taco trucks, legal cannabis, and sitting in traffic on the 405 for three hours. Tony Bennett can keep San Francisco - my heart is in the City of Angels, and I will do whatever it takes to reunite with it there. I'll just have to wait at least one more week to do so, as Peggy, my car and means of transportation to LA, is in the garage getting her power steering fluid line fixed. It's the latest joke in this comedy of errors, that after having my car inspected not once but twice since September in preparation for this move, less than a week before I was scheduled to depart, Peggy decided to spring a leak that would require major repairs to fix. Now, I don't believe in God in the way that my Roman Catholic-raised ass is supposed to, but I have to admit, at times like these, God makes a damn good foil. Clearly something in the universe wants me to learn that no matter how much I try to plan and prepare, there will always be things that are out of my control. The universe has been trying to teach me this lesson my whole life, but it might just be sticking this time. As my good friend noted when I was relating this newest twist in my saga to her, "You seem strangely calm about all this." And I am, because after 33 years and thousands of dollars in therapy, there's really no other way to react when you're hit with these kind of curveballs. Maybe that's obvious to some of you reading this, but for me, this is a hard-learned lesson. Does it mean I'm happy this happened? Of course not. I've been planning this move for almost a year now; I've now had to reschedule my departure date twice. Patience is not a virtue I possess in abundance. The negative voice that hangs out in the back of my head keeps whispering that this is proof that I'm making a mistake, and I should call off this whole crazy adventure. Limbo is not my ideal state in which to live, and yet here I am. But just because I'm not happy about it, doesn't mean being stressed or miserable will improve the situation. Instead, I'm choosing to find the silver linings in the situation: 1. At least I discovered the problem with my car before I was on my way to California, not while I was driving through bumblefuck Texas. 2. I get to spend more time with my East Coast family and friends, who I will miss very much when I'm gone. 3. I'm giving God a good chuckle, and as a comedian, isn't my whole job to make people laugh? I've realized that, while this move is absolutely a geographical journey, it's an emotional and intellectual journey as well, and I've arrived at a key outpost - the place of accepting and rolling with the unexpected, where you can remain undeterred and focused while laughing right along with God because after all, wouldn't you rather laugh than cry? |
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