Back to the Start

“Mom!” I called into the vacant house, “I’m home!” 

I must’ve called it a thousand times, but this time as the word left my lips it didn’t feel quite as right. Home was a foreign concept, so lost within my mind that even as my mother embraced me, warm and loving as ever, it didn’t sit right in the air. Some deep tugging sensation to my core told me that home was no longer the word used to describe this place. 

Dad came up from the basement, smiling warmly at me. He leaned against the counter as mom cooked and asked me his million-life-questions. This time it wasn’t college classes or finding an internship that we spoke of as chicken sizzled in its pan and the green beans snapped up at mom’s wooden spoon. The same feeling of unease settled over me once more; like an annoying itch that wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard you tried to scratch. 

The old dog wanders over to me, teeth jutting out as he stares up at me through the curtain of hair obscuring his eyes. He’s still heavy as I scoop up the little pup, but his fur, at least, feels comforting. Mom comments on how he’s started to only eat his food in certain ways and how he’s got a vet appointment later this week. The unease settles back in as I set my pup back down. 

My baby brother walks in the door as mom sets the chicken on the table. We all jumped up to greet him back home. At the thought, my stomach twists and I try hard to not let it show through too much as Dad asks about his grades and sports. As mom asks how his girlfriend is and if he’d made any friends and why didn’t he just call more. I hang back, waiting for their million-life-questions to end. He hugs me as he passes, smiling down at me and I’m sure he’s grown another inch since I last saw him, though that can’t be possible. Mom said he stopped growing in Freshman year of college, I still don’t believe it. 

“Sis, how did you fight the silence?” my brother asks. 

“I wrote. Or did a hobby to occupy my mind,” I found myself answering, “Something not really productive towards anything, just something to do, so my mind didn’t wander too far off.” 

“And if that didn’t work?”

“Cry myself to sleep and pretend it was all fine in the morning.” 

He chuckles at that, but says nothing more and we continue watching our movie, fighting for dominance in the popcorn bowl. The same nausea returns, however, this time doubled. The guilt over years where I was a stupid teen came crawling back into my mind. How often had I blown him off when we were younger and more care free? Just to sit in my room and do nothing anyway. How often do I wish I could fill the silence with my brother’s poor jokes rather than the dark thoughts that creep in all alone in my apartment? 

“I just have to run up to the school before we go. The fishes need feeding in my room,” mom says. 

She’s retiring in two years from her long stint as an elementary school teacher, but picturing her doing anything else other than teaching feels…that same kind of nauseating from before. 

“Can I come?” I ask, and mom light’s up at the opportunity. Speaking about how much time we can save if we leave right from the school anyway. 

The elementary is the same maroon bricks and doors with bold white letters as when I went here. The same old linoleum floors cut out in giant squares with its two randomly different colored bullseye squares spaced out along the halls. I stand staring down the hallways while mom hurries on to her room. 

That's where I went to first grade. There was the same maroon locker that was mine. There, at the end, where I went to second grade. The spark that happened in that room tumbled and snowballed until it became the career I work today. I feel a million miles away and at the same time all too big for this long hallway that seems to stretch and expand until it reaches on for forever. Looking back at the floor I notice the bullseye. 

My right foot hops into the off-colored floor, the left hops back onto the ring that is the same as everything else. Right into the center, left taking me out. Right to the off floor. The double foot hop to the next bullseye. Right, left, right, left, right. Double. Repeat. 

“What are you doing?” Mom chuckles from in front of me. My head snaps up and I give her a small smile. 

“Playing hopscotch.” 

“Well come on, I’m finished,” she says and continues talking as I follow her back out of the building. 

Unease settling back onto my shoulders. Crawling back into my stomach to rest for a while. The gnawing ache of an itch that cannot be scratched. Can I ever scratch it?

I lay in my old room staring up at the old fan as it spins in its lazy circles. The same aqua-blue walls surround me, housing the old bed frame that apparently came from my baby crib. The old closet that never got doors, despite my parents promising to install them, sits slightly too small for me now. The unease I’d been feeling settles over my body once more; heavier than the comforter that lays tucked up under my chin. It crawls under my skin and infests my mind. The word, home, bounces around my brain like a racket ball, making too much noise for sleep to ever find me. 

The word used to mean here, this house. Where my parents were only 10 feet away. Where my brother yelled at his video games late into the night. Where my dog barked at every little noise the old house made as it creaked and settled in its foundation. The place my parents had chosen to start their family. A corner of the world, tucked away from everything and everyone. 

I’ve outgrown it now. This small corner of the world is too small a box for me to ever fit back into. 

Childhood. 

The word comes to me as if whispered by another directly into my ear. It makes more sense, fits what this feeling is. The longing for a life that has passed, for two worlds that cannot co-exist. 

Childhood is here, this house, this neighborhood. The people who live here, will stay here and pass on here. I can visit, but I can’t ever reach it again. 

Rolling over, I wonder if the unease, the longing, will ever truly leave me. If my heart will catch up to my brain and realize that childhood cannot be my home. Not anymore, or ever again.