Home Happy

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of coming of age books. Great books, such as Looking For Alaska by John Green, Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Perks especially hit home for me, not because I experience anything that the main character Charlie went through, but because it seemed so natural. So I started thinking of my own upbringing, and my own coming of age, and the people I’ve met and experiences I’ve had since. Heck, I still think I’m coming of age, still learning what its like to be a man. But that’s aside from the point. I felt something else, and I’m going to do my best to describe just what that was.

I think for a lot of people in the Peace Corps, or living away from home, family, and friends for any extended amount of time, domestically or internationally, thoughts of the past can be painful. You dwell on good memories that are gone and past, wishing that you could return to them; to reach out and touch them. And sometimes you wish it so much, that everything else around you in the present becomes less interesting, and maybe been depressing. You feel homesickness. But what I’ve noticed from my recollections of the past is the opposite of homesickness. It’s home happiness.

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I look back and those memories make me smile and feel warm. They make me feel like I’ve lived. Scratch that, they make me feel like I’m alive, right now in the present. Because I know no matter what, I will always have those memories. Maybe everything else in my life will change, but those, well; no one can ever take away. Some are cliché, like my first kiss (thank you Hannah Hutton), picking up my first girlfriend for a date (and thank you Alyson Atherton), big family Thanksgivings, the day my folks dropped me off at Richmond, my high school and college graduations. But a lot of those memories that I hold dear lie in the small moments, like sleeping on the turf a few nights before graduation. Or playing late night “ping pong” in a friend’s basement on east chop. Or priming walls with a new friend on a YG trip. Or me and my college buddies sitting in our self made tree house, shooting the breeze about what comes next. I definitely miss those moments and those friends. And yes, I definitely would enjoy re-living them. I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever be able to be at a party again where everyone is crammed into some small backroom, sweating profusely, dancing up and down to the pop song of the day, like Party in the USA. And loving every second of it. I sure hope so.

I realize that those moments in my past helped me get to where I am today, and helped me grow into the person I’ve become. And those (to tie this back to the beginning) were my coming of age moments. All the successes, all the mistakes, all the failures have all played a part. So I shouldn’t miss them, but embrace them, because those are my links to everything. I’ll always carry those memories with me, so they’ll never truly be gone or out of touch

I don’t really know what I’m trying to get across to you all right now, but I hope you understand. I just feel really happy right now, that I’ve met so many great people in my life, and been able to share so many unforgettable experiences with them. So for all those folks who have been there with me, both in the best of times and worst of times….thanks.