I'm Leaving Home to Head Back Home

Lately, I've been wondering what it takes to develop a sense of being home. Dan and I have been living in Baltimore for three months now, and I suppose it is beginning to feel like this is where we belong. When I come through the apartment door and hear Maggs mewing upstairs, excited about my return, I feel at home. But it's possible that this is only because my apartment is my respite from work, an oasis far from the mind-numbing repetition of the work day. I come home, kick off my high heels, discard my dress pants and sit on the futon, eating cubes of cheese and staring blindly at the television set, unwinding. These moments feel like college, real but unreal. Temporary.

This weekend is Yom Kippur. Dan and I will be returning home, back to Ann Arbor. We'll sit and share drinks over dinner with my parents. We'll pile egg salad or tuna onto bagels to break the fast with his. We'll sleep in the houses we grew up in. We'll see the friends we left behind, or the ones who come in for a weekend visit. It will be the same as always, like any other Yom Kippur, like any other weekend dinner with my folks. And yet, it is completely different, because we don't live in Ann Arbor anymore. We'll be visitors in our own homes.

I suppose a transition by its very nature forces one to feel like a transient. Nothing feels complete or permanent; my old life has yet to catch up to my new one. It is like I am split: half of me here in Baltimore, the other half 500 miles away. "Where are you from?" someone will ask me, and I always say Michigan. "Where do you live?" Upper Fells Point. This is the distinction. One place houses the past, the other houses only the present. But perhaps I continue to exist equally in both. I am still the Claire I used to be, who speaks to her mother more often than her friends. Who watches television shows religiously, finds pleasure in the imaginary lives of others. The same Claire who hears a line, a saying, a quote she likes and scribbles it down on a piece of paper, stuffs it in her desk drawer for safe keeping. A Claire who gets caught up in Michigan football, Tigers baseball, and other sports she doesn't even care about.

But I'm a new Claire too. A Claire who takes the city bus home every day from work, with her head down and sunglasses on, not because she's scared or uncomfortable, but because she needs the downtime, doesn't want to carry on superficial conversations. I'm a Claire who runs along the harbor, tilts her head back when the wind blows over her body. A Claire who scoops her cat up in the morning, kisses him on the head. Who descends the spiral stairs down to the street and begins her day.

I'm looking forward to being back in Ann Arbor, sitting at my parents' kitchen table, staring out a window and seeing the backyard. "I'm going home this weekend," I'll tell my coworkers. Home to Michigan, to my parents. Back home to my home. But when the weekend's over, and Dan and I land safely on the ground at Baltimore-Washington International, I know we'll look at each other and think: ah, finally we're home. And when we come through the apartment door and hear Maggs crying out to us, I'll know that this is where we belong, this is our house. And I'll get up Monday morning, scoop Maggs up in my arms, kiss his head. I'll put on my dress pants and my high heels. I'll walk down the spiral steps to the street below. And I'll start thinking about how I can't wait until Thanksgiving, when I'll get to go back home.