You can never move home again; but you can move in next door.

This weekend I moved into my new/old place. New in that it will be the most recent but old in that it is the building in which I grew up. I am moving back to the old hood with my little sister. We grew up in a duplex and have rented the other ½ of it. It is a mirror image of our childhood home. I am fulfilling a lifelong goal here. I remember lying on the top bunk in the room my sister and I shared thinking that someday I would live here with no parents to tell me what to do. I would eat Fruit-Loops with Whipped Cream for breakfast and go to bed at midnight. I would get a dog, have my own room, and watch cartoons all day. That is pretty close to my plan now. Of course the idea of Fruit-Loops and whipped cream makes me want to die and I am worthless at work if I don’t get to bed before 10:30. I don’t watch much TV and when I do it is Law and Order or Gilmore Girls not cartoons. But I do have a dog and my own room.
The point is that this is not about a regression to my youth. Although I often feel that the flighty thoughts running through my head on a frequent basis contribute to my sometimes less than adult outlook more than I would like to admit. I feel that this move represents a need for comfort. Quite bluntly. . . things had gotten out of hand. I needed something to ground myself.
The 180 turnaround that I preformed last year was a mighty hard trick, one of stunning proportions. Making the transformation from high functioning alcoholic and hardcore party girl to self respecting business woman was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I have lost “friends” in process and even those true friends who have stuck by me often give me a hard time about my sudden life changes. I have become closer to those who are making these choices along with me and grown further from those who are not. I think that this choice to move home is a declaration to myself that I have not changed that much. I am still fundamentally myself and I am proud of that.
There are funny things about moving into the house you grew up in as an independent adult and most of these things are even funnier when everything is a mirror image. I think I know where the light switches and outlets are but they are all opposite. I walk around running into things, turning sleepily into walls rather than the kitchen. I expect to see my parents’ furniture as I walk from room to room and am shocked to find their antiques replaced with Ikea everything. I feel like I’m getting away with something if I drink a glass of wine. There my not be a moral to this story but there is a point. The point is that you can always bounce back. You may have sold your soul to the devil 1,000 times but God will always help you buy it from him when you really want to. But bouncing back means going back and really facing everything you have lost or rejected along the way.