I’ve been home two weeks now. Home being Brooklyn. More furniture has been delivered. More boxes have been unpacked. More feng has been shui’d. More things have found a home. Home being a place where they belong. The new apartment is slowly starting to feel like mine. And while the excitement of getting settled in before the holidays nudged me enough to book a flight back to New York, I was saddened to end my month long stay at home. Home being Dallas.
This last trip to Texas was therapeutic. My city was a salve. A remedy for homesickness, exhaustion, anxiety and apparently an unrecognizable onset of amnesia. It wasn’t until I drove down 67 South that I realized I, over the course of the past year or longer, had forgotten who the fuck I was. The jarring of motherhood, a full-time work from home routine (or the lack thereof) and a complicationship all upon the cusp of 40 morphed me into an unfamiliar self. Not a good self. Not a bad self. Just a version of me that is the furthest from what I’ve always known me to be. Ever been in a deep sleep and find yourself fighting to get out of it? (see “witch riding your back”)
The Polk Street/Pentagon Pkwy exit woke me up.
Cruising the back roads from South Dallas to Oak Cliff. Sitting in my brother’s backyard in East Dallas. Laying my head in my momma’s lap after walking the trails around White Rock. Hop-scotching from Duncanville to Grand Prairie to see my friends.
It all grounded me. Even with its new, fancy parts, the city gave me a familiar sense of peace and belonging.
As I rounded my final lap toward 30 East, I watched the lights on BoA Plaza, Reunion Tower and the Omni dance under the night sky. My heart twinkled along them. I would not be who I am if I’d never mustered up the courage to leave Dallas and discovered the experiences awaiting beyond its limits. Yet this much is just as true if I were never able to come back to my family. My friends. My city. Myself.
It’ll be a while before I can make the trip again. So, I’ve had this playlist in rotation since I’ve been back home, just to remind me of home… and who the fuck I am.
Enjoy.