I Want to Go Home§
writer: russell j.t. dyer; posted: November 22, 2007; revised: April 23, 2018; readers in past month: 958
I want to go home. My problem is that I don’t know where home is. Home is not in New Orleans where I am at the moment and where my family is primarily located. Nor is it in Milan, at my apartment. Certainly, both are somewhat home, but not quite. I feel more at home in my own apartment, with my things about me and other people locked out when I want. Home to me is not only the physical aspects of a house or apartment and furniture and so forth. It’s also a state of being. It’s where I feel safe and content. In my personal definition, the definition that I apply to me, it involves a woman, a companion. For me, it seems, home is incomplete without a female companion. It seems inorganic and slightly artificial without a woman present. That’s probably not a mentally healthy attitude — I probably should learn to have a sense of home without the necessity of another. Nevertheless, it is how I am. Yes, in previous musings I have argued that one needs to learn to be happy alone and in so doing one can have a better relationship with someone else. Nevertheless, I can be happy and still long for another. It is an instinctive tendency, I think, for me to want to be with someone else.
Wanting to go home seems easy enough, but I don’t know where or what home is. Or at least I’m not sure. Nevertheless, I need to try to articulate it to be able to make a plan which can lead to it. For years I have been trying to find one of those snow globes with the classic scene of a house, with a snow man out front, maybe including a dog and a boy. I can easily find snow globes with many other figurines and silliness, but not the classic home. I have seen the cheap ones made of plastic with a house and snowman in front, the ones that cost a few dollars and the water evaporates quickly. What I have been looking for is a nice one that depicts a home. A snow globe like that is like time and a dream captured to be viewed from the outside. I don’t want a house like it, I want the dream that it depicts and I want to make that dream into a tangible goal for which I can plan and work towards.
My vision of home is a place where I am comfortable and content. It has to have a certain amount of furniture and the like for me to be comfortable, and some personal memorabilia to give me a feeling of home and longevity. And even if I live with a woman, I have to have space to separate from her for a while occasionally and a place to hide. I’m like a little kid in that way in that I like to hide — if it wasn’t too silly to see, I’d hide under tables or behind chairs. I like small spaces that give the illusion of being safe. In a sense, a small space like that with nothing but minimal protection can be home for me. That’s what I want. That’s where I want to go.