On coming home.

Right around a year and a month ago, I indulged a thought that I'd had, occasionally, for at least a year if not more. I moved back to my hometown, which I'd done briefly several years prior, but this time I wanted it to be for good.

I had what should have been everything in Milwaukee - a great job, a halfway decent apartment, but something was always missing at the end of the day. I came home to an empty apartment, and spent most weekends either alone or in my car headed back up to the familiar streets I grew up on, to familiar places and faces who always welcomed me.

For the longest time, I felt like moving home was like giving up. Until, one day, when my mom said something that still sticks with me - "it's not giving up, it's coming home". And in the past year, those words have never rang more true.

I have never had a life so full, as an adult, that I have right now. I came back and found my place - something that I spent many years pining for. I wanted to be in a situation where I had things to do and people to do them with. People who understood me and genuinely wanted to spend time with me. I remember how astounded I was the first time someone held open a door for me up here - it had literally been years since I remember it happening. The people up here are just a different breed.

And I know that I burned bridges before I left town, but if I've learned anything from my struggles, it's that honesty is the best policy, and I have to be true to my feelings, even if it means leaving ashes in my wake.

Milwaukee was not a mistake by any means, because any experience is good, but it was home to some of my greatest struggles. Every time I've been back, I haven't felt anything. No pangs of guilt or like I've made a grave mistake. The few times I've gone and been places I used to frequent, though, I'm overcome with the feeling of being somewhere that no longer belongs to me. Which sucks, but at the same time, growth and the ability to look back on these places with positive feelings is good, also.

While I've had time to look back and reflect on the way things are now versus then, I still don't think I would have changed a thing. I'm in a great place now that I wasn't in a year ago. And for that, I'm thankful. I'm glad that I took the plunge and came home, without so much as a job or a plan, really, only because I knew in my heart of hearts that I needed to. Because being hours away from everything I cared about got to be too much. Family and friends are everything to me, and when it got so hard to leave that I was crying in my car on the drive back to Milwaukee, I knew I needed to do something.

I did the selfish thing, for once, and did what was right for me. And I know, now, that it was the thing I needed, to ensure that I can have a good fucking life, and I do, for the first time.