I have been quite sick this week. There are illnesses that descend solely on you physically; however this one has attacked me mentally as well. I am so worn down with being sick that it has made it rather hard to focus on the little things. I haven't been running or hiking in over a week as a result as well. One realizes how deeply they love something once it is absent. I was feeling very low yesterday when I looked out my kitchen window. The little black and white wild cat that lives in my backyard was delightfully chasing his tail. He does this often. It would seem that wind, rain, nor snow are his greatest foes, but rather his nefarious tail. As I watched him play and looked at the big delightful tree that also lives in my yard I felt my soul begin to warm again and the following thoughts came into my mind....
Years ago my favorite movie was Garden State. I still love it, but as I talked it over with a friend the other day we both came to the conclusion that the love affair with it wasn't what it once was. If you don't know the movie it is a film about a young man who returns home after the death of his mother. It has been many years since he has returned home and he is rather plagued by depression. Once home he encounters old friends, a quirky and lovely Shins loving girl, and his relationship with his father that is rife with issues. The soundtrack is phenomenal and even though the movie doesn't resonate in the same way it did when I was in the midst of my own quarter life crisis a quote that Andrew makes still sticks with me,
"You know that point in your life when you realize that the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore. All of the sudden even though you have some place to put your shit, that idea of home is gone or maybe its like this rite of passage you will never have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, for your kids, for the family you start. It's like a cycle or something. Maybe that's all family really is: a group of people that miss the same imaginary place."
Anyhow, for a long time I very much related to that sentiment. For a long time I wandered around without a sense of home and feared that the only way to achieve it was to create my own 'imaginary place' and that was so unsatisfying. I think that is why the film doesn't resonate as much any longer, because as I have aged I realize that you can find home within yourself. That as you become comfy with yourself and who you are that you become almost like a turtle- carrying home with you wherever you go. It sounds heavy to carry such a thing, but it is a very freeing thing to be your own creature. Though I have found a sense of home in myself however it has been a while since a physical place has felt like home. Looking out my window yesterday despite feeling like absolute crap I felt rather blessed to be more self possessed (though still a work in progress) than I have ever been and to live in a house that is a home. And it is in this home that I will continue to nurse myself back to health and nurture my soul into feeling like it's old cheerful self.
