Homecoming

A few months ago when I started this blog, I began with coming home. I had come home from the mountains, to my home in the largest city of a very agricultural state, Louisville, KY. This place has been my home for, oh, how long? 12 years. It taught me what home means. 
To me home means family. We aren't always the closest--for years we hardly ate dinner together, and now we are all fixing to go our separate ways. We love each other and we've made each other who we are. We have grown together, laughed together, cried together. Through the good times and the bad, we've told our stories. My heart kind of breaks when I look around myself at the packed boxes and know that in about two weeks there will be a for sale sign in our yard. I look at our cardinals and goldfinches and breathe heavy, thinking about how much I love them. 
But, notice I said my heart kinda breaks. I am utterly excited about moving. My mom said something very wise, "don't be sad about moving and wishing that we could stay here, be happy for all the life and love that this house is going to give to the new family who moves in". After watching all of Marie Kondo's Tidying Up, I believe in the power of a house as a home. I believe in the life within it. My walls look naked now, and it almost looks like a sin to look at them, bare, without all of my pictures and little things hanging up on them. My walls were totally plastered with pictures, anything and everything from newspaper ads to concert tickets, to college acceptance letters. Those walls lived with me. And even though they don't talk anymore (and I'm very glad that they don't) I feel deeply rooted to them. Rooted to the walls...? Maybe not the best metaphor, ha! 
So I've been doing the KonMarie method of going through my things as I've been packing, and all I have left to pack are my dishes and my camping gear. Her method is to go through your things one by one and ask if they bring you joy and functionability. Is that a word? Oh well. But you ask yourself if these things bring you joy in your life going forward, and if they don't, you thank them and let them go. So this weekend, we yardsale! I used that word as a verb once in a different way, you see, in my family, yardsale means to totally lose all of your shit and fall on the ground. People were so confused. 
But now, I have all of my things packed. It's hard to look at some old things that you haven't looked at in half a forever, thinking about all the joy they could bring you in the future, but knowing that they won't bring you that joy. Then subsequently understanding that you have to let go. And I'm a big crap-holder-onto-er. I just dumped out almost all of my school papers from middle school and high school. It's actually a big relief. Honestly, packing has been one of the most therapeutic things I've ever done. Moving, however, is one of the most stressful things. We shall see.
But listen, I'm going home. This past semester has been among the hardest times in my life. It has buried me deep deep deep. But springtime is upon us, and I have finally poked my head out of the deep earth. I can finally let my leaves bask in the sunlight, and peer into the stars in the nighttime. I am going home. After a revelation, I have decided to go back to App State. App was my dream, and is my dream. It has given me nothing but love. I came home to protect myself, and I'm so glad I did. Getting medication straight is hard. Getting therapy and good therapy and the right therapy for you can be even harder. I still, to be honest, haven't found the right therapist for me. I'm thankful for my family and extended family who have loved me and held me close and talked me down and made me laugh. I've learned that there's more to life than getting the perfect grade--I even failed a class and just let go of the guilt. In the past I would've berated myself for years over that. But mental health is more important than some stupid class you can retake anytime in your life if you want to. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You are worth it. You are worth life, because you are life. We are all connected and losing someone means losing a part of ourselves. We have to protect each other. 
So I'm going home to the mountains, one of the places that changed me the most in my life. It gave me love, it brought me to my friends, it saved me when I was lost. When I was alone Senior year of high school, very depressed, under constant abuse and wondering when I would have the courage to let myself go into the great beyond, App state was calling me, asking me if I needed help on my application. I am sad that I'll have to move away from Chris and do the whole long distance thing again. I am sad that I'll have to leave my adopted home state. But I'm so excited for the life to come, and that's what I'm giving myself. Healing comes by letting yourself live the life you've envisioned for yourself. Now, that doesn't mean letting yourself live in a big mansion with a million billion bucks. It means treating yourself the way you want to treat yourself. You deserve the love you want to receive.