Homecoming

Squeezing to fit my laptop on my cluttered desk with half finished friendship bracelets, sticker collections, an overstuffed piggy bank, and miscellaneous trinkets, I write this from my childhood bedroom. I left Boston a few days ago to spend Christmas with my family. It’s odd, this annual trip home I now make. 

For five years now, since I was 16, I’ve flown out of Logan International Airport and done the painful six hour pilgrimage back to my hometown. Though now an anticipated routine, the concept of “going home” doesn’t really seem to get any easier. Don’t get me wrong, I love San Francisco- I loved growing up in the city, I love the eccentric people it inhabits, I love the way it molded me into the person I am, I love calling it mine- but it’s an uncomfortable feeling now, calling it home, when it hasn't been for so many years.

These streets I used to roam around daily are now merely the hallowed halls of my formative years. Memories, both those joyful and scarring, are now hazed over with nostalgia and romanticization. 

24th street: my favorite restaurant that I discovered had closed down last February. 

California street: the gas station where I crashed my father’s car into a pole.

Divisadero street: the #24 bus I would take everyday to get to school. 

Anza street: where the house of someone I used to refer to as my sister still sits.

I sometimes feel trapped in anonymity in a city of those who no longer know the person I am, but who still remember the person I was. I devolve again into her, my 15 year old counterpart, worried about my father scolding me, bickering with my sisters over stealing my clothes, wondering what the rest of my life is going to look like. 

I'm now living that life, just on the other side of the country. My apartment, my people, my heart, my life lie back in Boston anticipating my return. But that life wouldn't exist without this place. My old twin bed, my mother, my best friend, my origin story, the reasons I am the way I am. I have moved and changed countless times, always making sure to return home again to where the Golden Gate awaits me with open arms.

Perhaps this city never did know my name, though I am now branded with its foggy kiss. And in this yearly homecoming, I’ll proceed in my search for solace in its persisting familiarity; and hope my roots are keeping me grounded, not tying me down.