You Can't Go Home Again

I suppose I've never really truly felt this until this past weekend. Never before in my life have I not had my own place, my own bedroom in Austin. Even when I moved to Arlington, I still had the remains of my old bedroom at my parents' house. When I'd come home on weekends it was just like being in high school again.

Friday I actually asked my mom if I had a curfew. I honestly didn't know what to expect as a real live guest at my parents house. While I was living in Austin, in my house, I often went and hung out at my parents house, but I never really felt like a guest. Even when I moved back in in Junior year for a few weeks while I was really really ill, I didn't compute it as odd. To me, when I'm deathly ill, sleeping on the fold-out bed at my parents house isn't sleeping over as a guest, it's going home to have mommy take care of me.

This past week was hard. I found myself unsure of my position as I was truly a guest in Austin. I no longer have my own place there. I found myself (scary I know) missing Waco. I'd become oddly accustomed to the small city with the slow pace and the lack of anything really stimulating to do. I missed my cats. The strangest feeling was really realizing that I no longer LIVE in Austin.

I also found myself more concerned about my parents. My father is having health problems (knees, and now a shoulder injury) and my mother is suffering from side effects of diabetes. I hated to leave them today as I realized I was no longer 20 minutes away and able to check in on them or run over and spend a few hours with them whenever they got down. Who will take care of them now?

I oddly realized in a new way their mortality. I've always known my parents will not live forever, but stepping away from seeing them at least twice a week made me notice the changes in them. I can not imagine my parents in any way other than the way they've always been in my head: My mother is always a 35 yr old spunky lady who is sharp, witty and doing a million things at once. My father is always that 40 year old distinguished man with an appetite for adventure and a unique way of looking at the world. Suddenly I saw them as the 50 and 60 something year old they are now. It was a jolt.
So there it is. The truth. You can't go home again. It's oddly sobering. I'm not a person who likes change. Change should be gradual and really seem more like a stationary thing, not something moving. But it is not. I suppose reality is hitting hard with graduate school. Life seems to have sped up and I'm trying to slow it down some. I'm trying to stop the momentum so that I may sit and look around and take it all it. It will not slow.

Week three begins tomorrow. Bring it on!

Dad: I hope your appointments go well this week and that your surgery gets scheduled sooner rather than later.
Mom: Hang in there, your numbers should settle out soon (at least for a little while).
Thank you both for a wonderful weekend.