Moving: You Can't Go Home

I've been worrying, or thinking, a lot about moving to Chicago lately. It's coming, whether I'm ready for it or not, in a few months. Initially this seems like an easy reassurance: moving to Chicago means moving home, near family, to the state I was born in, right? Well, the more I think about it, the more it's not so simple. I think about the person I was when I lived there, 7 long year ago, and notice how different I am now. I think about some of the things I said to people I work with, take classes with, when I first moved here and am embarrassed: I sounded like an ignorant Midwesterner, even when I thought I was so fucking smart. But I'm different now. I don't think I'm so fucking smart, but I know I'm wiser. I don't offer blind, unwavering advice. I just don't think some of the stupid shit that was funny then is funny now. In short, I grew the fuck up, and I like the person I am now, in a way I might not have liked myself then.

And, although I love them very much, how much change can high school friendships endure? How much should two people try to be friends when there just might not be anything left of the original bond? When I move home, will I be expected to be the same Emily I was when I left? I hope not, because I don't know her anymore. I am reassured when I remember that my friends and family have changed a lot too, and so if we all go into it not expecting too much of each other, I'm confident we can forge ahead, learning about each other anew. Plus, there is the added concern of realizing I'm moving away from an area highly concentrated with gay women, into one highly concentrated with heterosexuals. As an adult gay, this is something I can deal with, but also something that will take some adjusting to.

These last 7 years have been really great: I moved out, went to school, made tons of great friends, and kept the good friends I had back home. I became a better writer, a deeper thinker, and a better person because of the relationships I have made and the things I have survived. I broke someone's heart and we both survived it. I stuck it out in a program I now don't think was right for me. I lived in a state with no friends and no relatives for 6 months. I beat Cancer. But "going home" sometimes scares the shit out of me. Since my grandmother died, I just don't really feel like "home" as a concept exists anymore, and so for that reason and many others, I am deeply relieved I am moving to Chicago, not Aurora, the place where I was born.

I am looking forward to many things in this move, too, that I should hold fast to when traversing the rocky wares of self-doubt: a new apartment, using hammers, learning a trade, starting a writing workshop of my own, meeting my sister's children, hanging out with friends I didn't get to see too much when they lived in Chicago: Shawn and Jess! Let's read comic books!

And besides, there are many worse things than moving home: brain surgery, starving, infidelity.