"home" sweet home
i spent all weekend visiting friends and my mom in my hometown. after living in new britain for almost a year and going back home rarely, i really noticed how fucking small this town is. for real, blink and you miss it. i also noticed how much of a country girl i’m not anymore. in high school i used to be able to do 60 on backroads in my 98 dodge neon with no problem and no fears. now? now i do 30 on backroads, clutching to my steering wheel bracing for every pothole (which appear every 2 feet) while i am also a moving deer target. aparently the deer have gotten pretty out of control back in my hometown, because every familiar face i had small talk with was sure to include “watch out for deer, especially at night. i saw 17 today already.” so you can imagine my posture and expression as i drove past 3 cornfields on the way back from the movies sunday night.
saturday i spent the day at the beach with my mom and then made dinner with her when we got home. then, the girls and i went to a small house party for some drinks. sunday i went to the beach with one of my best friends, kelly, all day and then went out to dinner and saw SEX AND THE CITY! sunday was my favorite day. we had so much fun together. yesterday i went to the beach again, then had to drive back to new britain to meet my boyfriend home in time from his return from Canada.
this is the first trip back home that i was actually glad to be there the entire time, and was even a little sad to be leaving. i’ve established a new life, my own life, for myself up here in new britain and i love everything about it. but i think i just miss how simple things are back home and how it all represents a time before life became different…expensive, grown up. while i was there this weekend i just wanted to wrap my arms around the whole town and give it a huge hug. for a long time i have refused to refer to my hometown as simply just “home” because i don’t live there anymore and keep in touch with only a few friends who still do. but spending the weekend there, at the beaches i’ve been going to all my life and driving down familiar pothole-infested backroads, i realized it still is my home because there is a piece of my heart there. and afterall, “Home is where the Heart is.”
its there with my best friend and some family. it’s in norwich with my mom. it’s in newport, RI with my aunt. it’s in new london with kelly. it’s in florida with my grandparents. it’s here, in new britain, with my boyfriend and college life. and its soon to be in my new apartment that i’ll be moving into august 1st!
2 months ago