This Place Called Home

One of my least favorite things about being a blogger is that the name blogger sounds way too close to the word booger, and i dont want to be associated with those, thanks though. Another thing I loathe about blogging? So many blogs become a way for people to publicize their inner thoughts, an online journal entry if you will. Well even if you wont, I find myself feeling very weird about reading some people's blogs; it gives me the sensation of having crept into their room while they were sleeping, loosened the bottom drawer of their dresser and having pulled out their personal journal to steal away their innermost thoughts and fears, goals and aspirations. It's kind of an odd, guilty feeling, to be honest.

I hope this blog post wont exude that same feel, but if it does, just pretend that I woke up after you snuck in, and gave you the ok to read to your heart's desire.

I'm home.
Or, yeah I'm pretty sure...Yesterday I finished packing up my Provo apartment and made the 10 hour drive back to the house i grew up in for the majority of my life. The drive went pretty smoothly, even though those ten hours between Utah and California never seem to get any shorter. My drive home was filled with a mixture of relief and enthusiasm, excitement and regret. Taking the offramp off I-80 to get to my house, I felt opened up to a city unaware of what it had meant to me, unaware of my past achievements and existence in its presence.

I woke up early the next morning and went running around Maidu Park. Even though I had lived here for nine years I had never made the loop around the entire park. A minute or so into my run I caught up with a young man, around 26 years old, who asked if I'd run with him. I agreed and we started talking. He was from sacramento proper and was around for a softball tournament. It was so weird, I felt like I was about to start telling the guy how weird it was for me to be home, how I had gotten home the night before and felt really out of place, how I had been studying out in utah and had gotten back from my mission a year ago. Of course none of this stuff would have been remotely interesting to the guy, he just wanted someone to pace himself with. Somehow I felt like he could see through me though, see all the confusion inside of me.

One of my favorite all-time movies is Garden State. I think it captures magnificently the oddity of returning to your hometown after a long time. So much has changed, and yet it's exactly as you left it. Many of the same buildings are still around, but they look at you a different way, as if they are now dedicated to defining the lives of a different generation, a different group of people that call the city home.