8.18: aeaea

on the ephemeral comforts of visiting home

Pardon the pretentious title, the Odyssey has just been on my mind recently and I thought it pretty fitting after a good conversation with Kanika that touched on (among many, many other things) the deceptive allure of coming back home to the suburbs of DC, particularly in the summer. She prescribes 72 hours as the “ideal” window for visiting home, as it’s enough to rest and see people before the malaise of complacency seeps back in. I was home for maybe 54 hours and do feel like I could’ve easily spent another week, but I’m tracking with her general premise.

A thought hit me Friday evening as I was driving back from Julia and Anna’s going away party at midnight, windows rolled all the way down in my old RAV4 with “avoid highways” toggled on in Google Maps after an evening of really good conversation: how did I forget how nice Maryland was in the summer?? Granted, it didn’t hurt that the party was at Julia’s grandparent’s swanky house in grassy Bethesda, and driving past all the big houses in affluent Montgomery County was a real sight for sore eyes—I’ve gotten quite used to the mid, one-story houses in San Jose that are still somehow listed at north of a million on Zillow. I stopped by the QO McDonald’s to redeem my free fries on the way back, ate them while rewatching the pilot of Suits, and proceeded to sleep better than I have in a long, long time. Sometimes life feels like it could be so easy, you know?

Getting to spend extended, uninterrupted with my parents was much needed, with brunch at Founding Farmers hitting just as hard as I remembered. As I recount all this, I do recognize that a large part of it was probably just the comfort of not worrying about work, but even still, it felt very different than my gap year. Kanika pointed out that I was likely also nostalgic for the seasonality of the East Coast, and I’m inclined to agree with her. The humidity is a bit rough in the daytime but does make for idyllic evenings and sunsets; moreover, I really do miss that brisk air of autumn as well as all the nostalgia of academic rhythms that comes with it. Do not miss those winters though, I like genuinely think I get seasonal depression.

Of course, I also got to see some of my sweet sweet friends from home! Julia, Anna, and Kanika as aforementioned, but also Autumn, Sayaka, and Vaibhav. I feel like I do keep up with them pretty well even across the country, but getting some good ole quality time is refreshing in a way that iMessage or FaceTime can never quite capture.

And yet, as my weekend wound down, I could already start to see through the mirage of being back home—deep down I think I always knew that I was really just missing the person I used to be. Is that too dramatic? Ok maybe it’s more so missing the stage of life I was in: on the precipice of a new chapter while still shielded from the responsibilities and realities of a full-time job. It’s easy for me to miss the summers of 2020 and 2021 when I think about how I got to hoop almost every night after my definitively under-stimulating remote internship, and all my friends happened to be back at home with me. Conveniently, the aimlessness of longing for a more satisfying (read: high-paying) job, stress of school, and overall ennui of not being able to do a whole lot get lost somewhere amid all that nostalgia. Try as I may to cling onto the fleeting sense of rest and repose that my childhood bedroom allows me, my parents’ house can only ever be an intermission—comfy as it may be.

I’m not quite sure what my thesis even is here, I don’t want to make it seem like I’m bashing on being at home (especially since my parents read this, I promise I loved this weekend). I just wanted to articulate the apparently contradictory nature of enjoying rest without succumbing to the desire to prolong the comfort or do something as brash as moving back there. I’m fairly confident that California is where I’m meant to be, at least in this season, so I’m trying to fully experience vacations and breaks without grasping at them as the cure for my ailments. Running from things never got me anywhere I truly wanted to be.

This doesn’t mean home wasn’t great! I mean, I loved it so much that I started to question why it all felt so magical. And as I’m slowly but surely starting to grow up, it’s not lost on me how much of a gift every minute I get to spend with my parents is. Even as I settle back into my everyday rhythms, I already feel more refreshed—I even found some renewed conviction to dial back in on my nutrition. Shocker, taking a breather and resting keeps you grounded… maybe I need to start Sabbathing again.

That all being said, I’m not sure when I’ll be back again, nor am I in a rush to figure that out. There’s a whole world out there, after all!

Kenny