Going home

And how the reminders of our former selves help us move forward

ID: A tunnel of trees covers the path leading to the beach. Blue skies and water are seen through the narrowing keyhole of the tunnel.

I went home last week.

Home to me is water. The pool in the backyard. The first peek of ocean from the top of the bridge spanning the intracoastal waterway. Hell, it’s the violence of a rising tide during hurricane season.

It’s a beautiful physical place, and it’s a mental space where I keep my early hopes and heartaches alike. I’m lucky that when I visit, I’m still able to stay in the home where I grew up, and as sure as my youth sports trophies are still in the closet, the ghosts of former selves also roam the halls.

Going home means checking in with these older versions of myself, comparing where I’m at now with where I thought I was going then. It’s an intersection of a self that still has work to do but has also come really far from the myriad uncertainties of adolescence. Some of these ghosts are ugly, and some of these ghosts are prescient, but none of them are obsolete.

---

Home is a humbling place. Pictures of you and the bodies you were least proud of. Corners of the house you can’t walk by without remembering a hurtful word you thoughtlessly hurled at someone you love. Reminders of all the things you wanted to change about yourself at some point and the work you’ve put in since then to get to this version of you (or the work that’s still ahead).

And that’s why we need home.

It’s far easier to dwell on the shortcomings of our past or worry about where we want to get to in the future than to celebrate the growth that’s gotten us to the present. We seldom acknowledge the progress we’ve made from self to self because once the new title is added to LinkedIn and the check clears, we’re trained to look further down the road to what’s next.

And that’s why we need home.

Without it we’re hurtling ceaselessly into the future without looking back. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things to unceremoniously leave behind (shark tooth necklaces, orthodontia, popped collars all come to mind), but without taking time to make healthy comparisons between starting points and present circumstances, we’re shorting ourselves and flirting with the burnout territory of the cult of productivity.

It’s good to check in and sit with yourself and look back before you move forward. It’s good to go home. It’s ok to see ghosts.