I thought I would miss this place when I picked everything up and moved across the country.
I was so sure that I would ache for my childhood home–haunted by both memories and actual ghosts.
It has only been six months since I left, so returning shouldn’t seem so intense.
I have forgotten so much in such a short time–which roads lead to which places, where the Indian grocery store is, how to navigate a car in a sea of angry northern Virginian drivers…
I do not miss this energy, find myself longing for my new home–the Central Oregon high desert air, the mountains around every corner, the smell of ponderosa pines…
I expected to shed some tears driving by my childhood home–feel some sort of sadness at seeing the deck stripped away, trees uprooted, transformations underway…
Surely seeing the spot where my brother and I played on a swing set for hours would stir something deep down at my core?
Yet I felt nothing but that old haunting–memories and actual ghosts, and nothing more.
What brought the tears tumbling down finally?
I saw one of my best friend’s mother, and her hug just tugged it all out.
I do not miss this place, but somehow that hug sank it in.
The Holladays and Hosseinis, the Bakers and the Miskes,
are not just a few minutes away any more.
The family we built here–that is what I miss, and the one thing missing in my new home.
I know that that will come (has already begun),
and I know that these people I miss are so deeply imbedded in my heart and connected to my soul–well they are that close to me wherever my body goes.
It just really hit me today–I do not miss this place, but how strange that the Holladay family is no longer a five minute walk away!
—
Leah Chatterjee
trotting along the pony trail 