‘BACK HOME’ IS THE SADDEST PLACE

“Back home we don’t call it that.”

Those are the words I overheard at Tapphoria.

Two people at another table were going over things.

They weren’t from here and the more they talked the more each mentioned their own ‘back home.’

I know homesick when I hear it.

It’s worse when they’re from another country and their parents are still there.

A new report (2015) shows that Americans live surprisingly close to home. According to the new analysis, a person in the U.S. lives on average just 18 miles away from his or her mother. 

It’s probably different for people who come from an ’18 and Out’ household where they get a birthday present of three months rent living someplace else.

Anyone ever hear of that?

That Back Home Moment In Real Life

I set up an apartment in Brooklyn, NY, turning on utilities and the whole deal, like someone with plans on sticking around.

Making appointments during lunch hour at work got it all together.

Very adult and independent, which was the feeling I was going for in the big-ass city.

You could say I was adequately competent jamming around on the subway and making it all work for me.

And it worked. But something was missing.

Everyone I knew then wasn’t as impressed by my urban navigational skills as I thought my friends and family back home would be.

It made me sad to think no one would ever be amazed by my ‘New Yorker’ skills.

Even sadder was hanging out with friends who all lived near their moms and dads in Queens, Staten Island, or New Jersey.

Who’s homesick now?

You Know Home When You Feel It

If, like me, you’ve had longings for someplace that doesn’t exist, like Back Home, you’ll get this:

You make a home.

And you are everything to everyone living in your home, visiting your home, or driving by.

Your home is right where you are.

If you need proof, go live among others on their own thousands of miles away from the people you know.

The proof is learning to do new things with new people. Over time you become one of them, but to them you’ll always be the new guy.

You needs to embrace the difference to make a home.

How many people never move out of their hometown?

Among all respondents to the Pew Research Center survey, 57% say they have not lived in the U.S. outside their current state: 37% have never left their hometown and 20% have left their hometown (or native country) but not lived outside their current state.

To get a good enough feel for things like moving to new places, then moving back, I moved to new places and moved back.

Or close to it.

Sometimes it works out better than others, but no matter, making where you live a home that reflects who you are, or want to be, is a step in the right direction.

Pass it on.

My dad was a Buddha that rarely embraced confrontation, and my mom was a shrinking violet that turned out to be wiser than I ever thought. I never accorded either of them the respect they deserved while they were alive, to my regret.

It’s never too late to be a good example of what a home can be.

Make it a ‘Back Home’ to remember.