i guess i've been a little homesick

i'm really glad i got to go home for thanksgiving. even though having the whole family around for four days is a little too overwhelming to me, it's always nice to slip into that comfortable rhythm of playing spades and ignoring football talk and filling in everyone on what my life is like. it was a great, warm time.

a new complication i haven't really thought about before: i don't know what to call "home." technically my house in dc is my home. i'm paying to live here, this is where i spend my time, everything i own is here, but it's hard to stop referring to my parents' house as home. i asked matthew what he calls our home-home, and apparently he calls it "mom's house," but that feels too weird. i kept getting confused/confusing other people by referring to both places as home in the same sentence and things like that. when i was away at school, i knew housing was temporary and i'd be spending significant time at home on breaks, but it's not like that now. i'll never be at roanoke-home for more than a few days. i told my neighbor i was going home for thanksgiving, and he pointed at his house and said he was, too. when will i get to the point where this is "home" and the other is either "hometown" or "parents' house"?

also, when i'm in dc, i can't imagine living anywhere else. i love it here. i love our house, i love our neighborhood, i love this city. i'm getting used to everything and learning where everything is and feeling like quite a resident. but anytime i go home, i sort of just want to stay there. roanoke is pretty small, but it just feels simple there and it's always beautiful. i'm more comfortable there than i will ever really be anywhere else, i think. there's nothing easier than waking up at my parents' house and having coffee with mom in our pajamas and chatting about things while dad reads the paper and eats his lucky charms. will anything ever feel as homey as that? i realize i'm too old and independent to ever actually be happy living with my parents again, but sometimes i wish i could see them more often. i also think i'm a little jealous of how much time matthew gets to spend with them, especially mom. i'm not sure if that's ridiculous or not, but i think it's true.

things just feel so different in roanoke. everything is slower: people walk slower, talk slower, drive slower, etc. there's something appealing about laidback mountain life. i think i'm fundamentally split between wanting this simple, remote life and wanting to be in the hub-bub of city life (though dc is probably the biggest city i could deal with). i can see myself wanting to move somewhere quieter and slower when i'm older.

on this visit home, i think i really appreciated the accent for the first time. i realize people here and at school think i have an accent, but when i go home, i realize just how southern i could sound. i've never really liked that accent before, but for some reason, just listening to people talk in the mall made me miss living there. there's something about that accent that just sounds like mashed potatoes and mountains and simple common sense. it makes me wish i didn't try so hard sometimes to cut down on how noticeable my accent is (though i'm sure i'm not doing a very good job of that anyway). nothing can convey a warm, homey, kind, considerate feeling as well as an accent that sounds like my mom's, i guess. if i live away from home long enough, i wonder if my accent will dissipate? on the one hand, i know people automatically associate the southern accent with stupidity, but i think it'll be a shame if i ever lose it. i probably wouldn't be able to, anyway.

so i guess this thanksgiving in roanoke was just a time to mythologize my hometown and to feel like the whole roanoke valley was just hugging me.

i'm back in dc now, and of course i feel like this is where i belong again. i'm really excited for christmas and for decorating our house here and for everything that december brings. i hope it snows this winter.

also, it's december already?!