Home

You can never go home again.

For Thanksgiving I took the train from Ann Arbor to Chicago and spent Thursday much in the same fashion that I had last year, with dinner and a show. We go to a convention hall somewhere in Chicago where they hold this Thanksgiving special of a buffet and a broadway show. Both the show and the food were good, in that aspect I can't at all complain, but Thanksgiving feels so empty now. With my family gone. Well, I can't say gone, most of them are still here for now, but broken.

All I can remember is how the holidays used to be, and the stark constrast of what they're like now as opposed to nefore suprises me every year, despite the fact that by now I should be used to it.

When I was growing up, we always had Thanksgiving at our house. Uncle Jimmy would always show up just a little bit before everyone was just about ready and waiting to eat, having sunglasses but no helmet after coming on his Harley from Chicago to Michigan. Wearing a leather jacket and either a Bears or Bulls shirt, his appearance matched that of the classic "badass", but never acted like one around the family. Being over six feet tall, my head never reached above his chest; he would nearly squeeze the breath out of me whenever he hugged me, saying "Mercy mercy mercy", whatever that meant. When he thought nobody was looking, he would sneak some food to my dog, and as a result he had a friend for life. My Grandpa John would make some sort of joke, and I would laugh until I was pink in the face and gasping for air all over again. Really it was a wonder I got through it all alive.

Both Uncle Jimmy and Grandpa John are dead now, and my mother and father are divorced. There will never be another Thanksgiving with them again.

When I came back from Chicago, I walked into the house, and again my own house suprised me. Most of the furniture was still gone from when my father left, it was dark, and cold, and when I expected Maggie to come, tail wagging and nearly beside herself with excitement, there was nothing. "Oh yeah, she's with Dad..." Where my room used to be, there's now just a plain room.

There is nothing in this town for me anymore, and for a moment, I am happy to know that come next year, I should be a world away. More than ever before, I think I realize that I have to make my own life, and that's starting right now.

My home is gone, and I can never go back.