FRIDAY OPEN THREAD: How Did You Know You Were Home?
feature image via Shutterstock
Hello rainbows near and far! I’m emerging from the deep freeze of an overwhelming offline life to lead this week’s Friday Open Thread, where we all get together to talk about our feelings and the events that inspired them. Pull up a chair/comfy pillow/bar stool/living room sofa/other seat of choice and let’s go!
I kicked off 2018 with a gigantic change: relocating from Los Angeles to Washington, DC to work at a disability rights advocacy organization. About four months in, I’m happy to report that my job and I are indeed made for one another and I remain in awe that they’re paying me to do any of this. No matter what I will always be proud that I responded to the 2016 election by picking up and going for it. There is no better way I could have transformed my grief and anger and I’ve never felt more empowered or fortunate.
HOWEVER.
Relocating is hard! And as someone who hadn’t done it before, wow was I surprised how intensely the homesickness hit about a month and a half ago. I recognize I’m super late to the party on this but geez. No matter how nice the people (and in my neighborhood they really, really are) or incredible the opportunities (being at the Capitol the night of Nancy Pelosi’s DACA quasi-filibuster is up there), I haven’t quite been able to shake the sense that I’m a Californian in a strange land. For a while I had to actively restrain myself from getting off the train at the airport on the way to work and flying home — not to quit, but to feel like I was back where I belonged for a minute. Fortunately conditions have improved since then thanks to the change in the weather, leaning into the endless amount of nerdy stuff to do here (which not even the literal worst administration in history can take away), and the arrival of my girlfriend and the cat.
Seriously look at this guy
So here’s my question, fellow travelers: how did you know you were home? Whether after moving to a new place, switching apartments in the same city, or finding the community you’d been searching for online/in life, what made you realize you’d arrived? When did you finally relax and say “yes, this is it”? What’s the best thing about wherever and whatever you call home? Tell me all about it and let’s create a home for each other here while we’re at it.
PS: Excited to see a bunch of you at camp SO SOON! Come say hi!
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