Kicking & Screaming

Just happened upon an old journal entry from when I was finishing grad school a few years ago.  I could write a whole new chapter on where life has taken me since...  Enjoy!

 

 

It's funny how life works... we are born, kicking and screaming... we don't know what's going on in this strange new world that these random people have forced us to enter... we recognize our mother's voice, but we don't know how or why, but the nostalgia is comforting nonetheless... it reminds us of home, that place we left (the womb). We want to go back, but find ourselves more and more fascinated with all of these amazing, unbelievable, formidable views and sounds and smells and tastes... none of which we had at our old home, where we used to live, where those random people forced us out of. But we still kind of, sort of want to go back... not because of the sites and sounds and smells and tastes, but because of the feeling of safety, warmth, belongingness... home.

But then, something amazing happens... we start to really feel at home in this new world... the world that is full of these wondrous sites and smells and tastes and sounds. Those random people that forced us out of our old homes, they become our best friends. I mean, Mom, that friendship was a given, we already knew her voice and it reminded us of our old home... but this Dad character, he seems pretty cool too! "I guess I really like them both..." is probably what we think (of course not in English or French or Spanish or Hebrew or Arabic... but in our own language, the language that we understood from back home... I think they call that language "Instinct"... yeah that's right, Instinct). Well the problem with instinct, we find out shortly, is that we are the only ones who can "speak it" because it's not so much an out loud type of language... I guess it's the way our body communicates with itself... so we quickly learn that making those goofy noises that these Mom and Dad people (and grandma and grandpa and sister and brother... gosh, how will I remember these people, there are already more people just living with me than I ever knew existed before) make, they go crazy about it! So we start saying things like "Mama!" and "Dada" and "Baba!" and "Doggy" and so many other funny sounding things, just because it makes mom and dad show their teeth and squint their eyes and say another word that we don't quite know what it means "awwwwww" or something... we don't know what it is about those faces that make us want to say those silly sounding words but it is such a pleasant and fun face that we want to keep saying more and more of these goofy words... we guess the only way to describe that face is the same face that we first remember them looking at us with... that must be why we know it's good. (That face is a smile, but imagine how enchanting it would be to first see and figure out how good of a thing that is).

From there we learn to roll over, sit up, crawl, stand up, walk, and run... and we get to try out new foods all of the time. We figure out what our hands and feet are for and we finally figure out what everyone is making that funny teeth-showing-eye-squinting-face over... because we know how to feel happy! We learn that there is nothing better than being held by mommy and daddy and grandma and grandpa, and for the lucky ones, big brother and big sister... And just when we thought there was nothing left to learn, we learn how to sing and dance, we learn how to hop, skip, and jump... some of us learn to do cartwheels and somersaults and back flips... others learn how to make people laugh by trying to do cartwheels and somersaults and back flips (haha)... We get to see a guy named uncle something pull a quarter out of our ear and wonder why people go to work, because if money comes out of our ears, we should just play and do magic tricks all day, right? Those darned adults; they'll figure it out someday! We're so far ahead of them! If they would only stop wasting time on the silly magic of pulling their own thumb off and putting it back on and stealing our noses and belly buttons and then returning them, they'd be able to pull a lot more quarters out of our ears and then they could spend all day with us!

And then we get older, and although we don't forget what it feels like to be warm and safe at home, we now feel warm and safe at our new home... after all, we've lived here way longer than the 9 months we leased that other place for... we learn to add and subtract and read and write... we learn about so many things like science and stars and flowers and religion... ah, religion... the coolest thing we've ever heard... learning about big ol' magic tricks on Sundays that adults even believe is true... it must be real magic if adults believe it's true, right? I mean we know Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and Frogs that turn into Princes are real, but if the adults can see the other stuff is real, it really must be real, right?

But then life gets tricky... some people keep the magic, some people change it, and others completely lose it... then we realize, some people weren't given it to begin with... I'm not talking about religion, and fairy tales here, I'm talkin about the magic of life and its wonders... some people weren't given a chance at all of that and for some of us, we decide that we can't let that happen anymore... for others, it is so unbearable that we turn away... We don't know what the right way is, but we go the comfortable way... the way that feels more like home to us. And that's the way we should go, toward home, toward comfort, and if we are able to help a magically-deprived person along the way, that is awesome... chances are, if we still have the magic, we will help them whether we know it or not.

So then we spend a lot of our lives realizing that quarters don't come from our ears and frogs don't turn into Princes and Santa Claus is way too fat to fit down that chimney there, and the tooth fairy couldn't possibly carry around all of that change for all of the lost teeth in the world... so our sense of magic turns into a sense of logic... which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it kind of goes with our first language, instinct.

Well by this time, we are finished wondering about all of the fabulous things around us because, well, by this time most of us have gotten through a considerable amount of school where we were taught scientific explanations for all of this crazy stuff in this crazy world that so long ago these strangers that we now call Mom and Dad forced us to come into... But you know, we just can't wait to get out of this place... man once we turn 18, we're out! Don't know where, but anywhere but here! College, Military, Europe, Chicago, I don't care... anywhere but here... and even though at this point we still live with our parents and our siblings, we grow farther and farther apart from them. We still love them a whole lot, but man those new people we met along the road during these last 18 years are really looking cooler and cooler by the minute and, Gosh Mom and Dad, don't freak out, I'm not a baby anymore, you don't understand!! These are our FRIENDS man! And I swear some of these people are my soul mate!

So we leave home... we're pretty sad but more excited to get out of that town that was caving in on us... wait a minute... how come we miss our mom and dad so much more than those friends, those soul mates we met along the way? Hm... well anywho, on to make the new friends... friends from a whole different world... where ever that may be, somewhere different than our hometown... and we do, we meet a whole lot more friends, but we start to find that our best friends are back where we came from... wherever that may be... whoever they may be, our parents, our siblings, our aunts, our uncles, our buddy from kindergarten... we figure out that home really is where the heart is...
But what happens when a piece of your heart belongs in a few different places... how do you decide where home is?

Well, for me, that's where my family is... I went away for 3.5 years... came home for 9 months... and moved here... kicking and screaming (well maybe not so much kicking, more like crutching with a cast to my hip)... and crying a whole lot because I knew where my heart was and where I belonged. I begged my parents not to leave me here. I couldn't drive, could barely even shower without help. I certainly didn't know anybody... please take me back there, it's time to go back to my safe haven...
But then something amazing happened. I met some friendly people, people who reminded me of other people from home... I didn't know how, but these people made me feel nostalgic without feeling quite as homesick... so I was able to step into this new world of mine and explore a whole new variety of sounds and tastes and sites and smells... and for me, mostly new knowledge and experience (well I moved up here for grad school, not to go on vacation haha). And once I got my cast off, I traveled back home as much as possible, but found myself saying "I'm on my way home." when I was on my way home... from home... huh... Apparently my heart has been in Schaumburg for a while now... but also in Peoria... and in Dubuque... but even though my heart tells me it's time to make the big move back home, it still aches that I have to leave this piece of my home behind. I hope that my friends from this home will be able to come to my first (or second, if you count the womb that those strangers aka my parents forced me out of) home to see who I really am and where I really came from... before they met me and before I knew what I know now and experienced what I have experienced... and although I have a long road (hopefully) of experiences ahead of me, what I have learned and experienced here is invaluable... I wouldn't give it back if I was paid... and as excited as I am to go back home, back "down south" as my friends up here call it, I find myself in a familiar position... a bit of kicking and screaming on the way out. Funny how life works that way...