Just over 13 years ago, I got into my parents' car to drive to a motel near LAX airport. It was August 2001, and the ultimate destination for my parents and I was Bryn Mawr College outside of Philadelphia, Penn., where I was about to start college.
There are many things I remember about the days that followed, but the first night of my trip to the east coast? That night itself is mostly a blur. The only thing I really remember about the trip to the airport that August night is fear. I don't really know where that fear came from--I'd started packing for college about five months earlier, and planning for it at about 8 years of age. Now the day was finally here, and all I could feel was fear mixed with sadness. I was 17 years old, so ready for the chance for a little independence from my overbearing family and from classmates who, like most teenagers, thought they knew who I was without hardly speaking a word to me. I only had one or two really close friends, and they were confident that I would be happy and successful at college. And to be honest, so was I.
Until I got into the car to go to the airport. That was the first step on the trip to college, and all I felt was fear. Paralyzing, terrifying fear. I remember biting my lip to stop myself from calling to my parents to turn the car around and go back home, where it was safe and warm and predictable and where nothing ever happened that I couldn't figure out or deal with. I bit down so hard my lip bled.
I was successful, though. I didn't ask my parents to turn the car around, and by the time we got to the hotel I was feeling somewhat better. I don't really remember how, but I even managed somehow to get to sleep that night, to get on the plane the next morning, to collect my luggage from the carousel and get into the rental car in Baltimore. I managed the drive to our Philadelphia hotel in what I recall as mostly silence, and certainly betraying none of the fear I felt the night before. The day after, I got back into the car with my parents until we finally arrived at the Bryn Mawr campus. By that time, there was nothing in me but excitement.
I've loved my life on the east coast. I was born and raised in California, never spent more than two months away from it before I went to college (and actually, considering how often I went back home during my freshman year for family celebrations and health issues, quite a while after I went to college), but now I feel a deep affinity for the other coast. I've been blessed. I've lived in so many states on the Atlantic Ocean--Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, New York, Maryland, New Jersey. I've attended two of the finest institutions if higher education this country has to offer. I've seen the Liberty Bell, gone to the top of the Empire State Building, Philadelphia's City Hall, the Washington Monument, and Rockefeller Center. I've seen Antietam, Gettysburg, Fredericksburg and Arlington. And more than anything else, I've made some of the best and dearest friends with the best and most provocative people I've ever known.
I don't know exactly why I'm telling you all this, except to say that it now appears to all be ending. I was laid off in April from a job I'd been at for eight months, and I haven't found new work, so I'm moving back in with my parents in California.
I can't remember how many jobs, including part-time student work, I've had since I arrived. The latest, an engineering consulting firm in New York City, was a job where I made friends with my colleagues and I showed up each day willing and eager to work and learn. I was fortunate to leave on great terms with my employers and managers, and many of my coworkers offered to serve as references for me. But that was six months ago. My lease ran out, and while at first I subsisted on house-sitting and pet-sitting gigs, now I'm going back to that place where, 13 years ago, I nearly didn't dare to leave. I was 17 then. I'm nearly 31 now. I've accumulated a BA in Philosophy and an MA in Journalism. I've worked for some wonderful people, in start-ups and long-established institutions.
When I first came to the east coast, not even my bank account was in my own name (my parents had to open it for me, since I was under-aged. They also had to sign a work authorization so I could qualify for the college's work-study program.) Now I have credit cards, property, debt and assets. I didn't even dream of owning a car back then--now I'm on my third automobile, a 2009 Honda Civic that I bought two years ago after it had been leased and returned by someone else. I've named the car Lulu, and she will be my only constant companion on this trip. I'll be staying with friends along the way most of the time, and other times I'll be staying at motels or relying on the help and support of an extended network for help. My dad will join me for part of the trip. I'm calling it my Farewell Tour.
I intend to use this blog not just to document my journey back home but also to record my thoughts and feelings as I make this trip. It's not easy to move back in with your parents after so many years of independence, especially when independence was foisted on you before you could vote or sign a check in your own name. I know my parents understand and they're doing their best to be supportive. Some days they don't really live up to that goal; some days they exceed it far beyond my wildest expectations. Like most things in life, it changes.
That's the biggest thing I'm trying to remember as I take this step, a step which feels unmistakably like a backwards failure: That life is change, and only a fool tries to block change. Anyone who has the wisdom of a peanut knows that you should take change, even if you're not ready for it, and just be willing to roll with it. But that can be hard to do when you're moving back to a place that hasn't really been home for years, and when it was home, it was home to a person you barely even recognize anymore.
I left northern New Jersey today, the place that has been home for the last five years. There were times when I hated it and times when I loved it, and the final departure was definitely more bitter than sweet. Whether the rest of this journey will follow that pattern, perhaps this blog will, in time, tell.
My first stop on the Farewell Tour is in suburban Philadelphia, only a few miles from my alma mater. I'll take a trip to the campus on Monday, but for now I'm sitting in the apartment of a dear friend from my college days. Her dogs are on our laps, and her husband is in the other room playing video games as I type. My friend sits next to me, mostly asleep, while tears fill my eyes. We've watched some television and had some dinner, and more than a little wine, and we'll be heading to sleep soon. And now all that's left to me for tonight is to wonder if, 13 years from now, I'll remember anything more about this night than the feeling of fear that keeps creeping into my heart, than I do about that night 13 years and approximately six weeks ago when I first began the journey out to the east coast.
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