This time I’m driving towards home to heal my broken heart. Last time it was because I felt like I did things I wasn’t proud of. Next time it will probably because I need my thoughts to go away.
It’s funny how vulnerability always drives us home, isn’t it? There are some scars that only a warm cup of tea and a hug from someone whose blood is running through your veins can heal. You could be working in another city, you could be married away from home or be studying in a far off college but once in a while, when you hit rock bottom, you will find yourself thinking of home. In that moment, you wish your freedom gets taken away from you, a curfew is set and every boy is tagged as danger. Or how you would give every penny you have just to hear you mom complain about how bad your skin has become and smirk at your father as she does this. There’s no denying it, we crave home at our lowest because it’s one of the few things that will still want us.
But what is it about home-bound travel that makes it the experience it is? Sometimes I think it is because of how much it is filled with our childhood. A reminder that there was a time very little mattered, the days when something big wasn’t happening every day, they just slipped slowly, happily and peacefully. Or maybe it is because home reminds of the people we use to be or the values we use to have but let go off. Who were you before things got a little out of control?
Maybe because we know someone is waiting, someone is counting the days to see you and that makes the entire journey there special. Walking out and having warmth welcome you rather than a cold cab driver. Think about it, we all say people are complicated but the heart needs something as simple as someone looking forward to your arrival. And isn’t home perpetually waiting for you to come back?
It’s not that home solves the problem, it never does. Home can’t fix the boy who broke you. It can’t show your boss you’re worth it, get you good grades, fix your marriage or bring people back into your life.
But it has its ways. You will be shown an unconditional love that even god denies you. The sort of love that is around so often and so much that you even forget it exists. But it follows you none the less, sometimes even when you don’t want it to. You will meet the people who knew you when you wore socks with sandals and who know you now, when you wear heels to work. Even the bestest friends you make later in life can’t be them. You will be fed so much food, just so much food, even when you can’t eat anymore. This food almost always tastes of ghee and nostalgia.
And all of these things aren’t meant to solve your problems. But they will make you feel human again, more human than machine. Without realizing it, your problems suddenly seem normal. That humans have problems and they get out of them. And even if you don’t get out of them, there’s a place that needs you. Even if you’re a horrible person that hurts everyone, are selfish, a bad boss, lazy worker, careless student or a mess, home still needs you. And don’t we all need to feel needed? Like Cohen says “Here’s to the few that forgive what you do and the fewer that don’t even care!”
Everyone writes about the adventurous adrenaline-filled journey away from home, very few write about the desperate journey back after, wherein we must accept that we, like everyone else, just want to belong. And some would argue the latter needs more courage.
Almost Like the Blues. 