This summer I just got in my head that I wanted my kids to see my childhood world, swim in my parents’ pool and visit the places I went when I was growing up, so I organized a pilgrimage to North Florida after a three and a half year absence. When you live far away from where you grew up and the plane fares are astronomically expensive and your parents are mobile and able to come to you, it’s easy not to go home. Plus, Florida in August? Not for the faint of heart. And being home is kind of like peeking behind Door #2 and seeing a whole way of life that I didn’t choose. It’s not regret. There’s just something unsettling about seeing an alternate path that looks so familiar and so foreign at the same time. Or maybe I’m just terrified of the girl who used to live there.
But last week I did. I flew with the kids to Florida and spend the week with my parents doing North Florida stuff like kayaking in the Wakulla River and spotting gators and manatees and eating at Angelo’s and seeing who could spot the bridge first on the way to St. George Island. Only if you grew up in Tallahassee can you understand its particular mix of humidity, southern hospitality, college students, government officials, smocked children’s clothes and Spanish moss.
Going home has always been a little emotionally charged for me. I left when I was 18 to go to college in New England and while I spent breaks and summers at home, in many ways I knew that I was already gone. For a lot of years, I tried to keep the thread that connected me to Tallahassee in tact but I’m not the best at keeping in touch and with every year the connection frayed a little more. I was never there long enough to create an identity outside of my high school experience, so when I was there I felt frozen in time.
Frozen in my young adult years that were not my favorite chapters in my life. Going home had been returning to a place of insecurity that was heavy with memories lurking around every corner. I vividly remember the physical ache of wanting the world to open up for me and anxiously waiting for my life to begin. And wanting so desperately to feel a part of something instead of on the outside, to be loved instead of rejected, to be seen instead of invisible. It took me years to wrangle these emotions. And I always feared that going home put them right back in the forefront as if I could regress across time to that disoriented girl. That maybe that girl isn’t as far away as I would like to believe.
On this trip, I had the distance I needed. I didn’t feel quite as raw or emotionally on edge. I didn’t duck down aisles in Publix avoiding high school acquaintances (Okay, I did. But it was only once.). Tallahassee has grown up a little over the last 18 years and I guess so have I. It’s not a vortex that can suck me back in time. It’s just a place where my parents and my brother live. Along with some really, really great friends. And now my kids will have their own memories and maybe over time their memories will eclipse my own. I would like that.
If I ran into my 20-year-old self in Publix, I would tell her with great confidence – you will know incredible love in your life. And one day, there will be a Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s here.
Have to say, Kaly, you really need to stay out of my head. Reading this was like taking a trip through my own fraught thoughts on Tally. I could not wait to get out, and once I did, I never looked back. I can’t imagine ever moving back, because I am quite positive I would fit in even less now than I did way back when. I have ducked out of an aisle at Publix to avoid an awkward encounter more than once. It is a bit of a relief to know that I am not alone.
Keep writing. You have a gift. Thank you for sharing it.
Thank you Katherine for the encouragement – it’s nice to know I’m not the only one still struggling after all these years!