As you all might be aware, the homesickness that I’ve experienced since I’ve moved to L.A. has come in at certain wave levels, the worst of it hitting me in my initial move and dying down as time went on.
Even though I feel like I’m adjusting to my “new home” pretty well, there are times where I’d really just like to pack up all of my things and move back home, or at least spend an extended period of time there, so when my mom called me and told me that she and my dad were planning to have me come back home for a week, all of my occasional thoughts of visiting home turned into constant ones. For about a month, nothing could put me in a bad enough mood (or good enough mood) to stop my excitement about going home.
Bad Day At work? Who cares I’m going home. Broke my Driver Side Mirror? Who Cares I’m going Home Got yet another Parking Ticket? I’m pissed but WHO. CARES. I am going home.
So by the time I got my boarding itinerary for my flight, I’d already planned out the places I wanted to go, things I wanted to do, people I wanted to see and it was all going to happen within a week, despite me not having steady access to a car… or really letting people know that I was coming down in the first place.
Needless to say, a lot of those things ended up not happening, and a week is actually a LOT shorter than it seems like, but I got to spend a lot of time with my family, which I wouldn’t have traded for any extra experiences on my list.
As happy as I was to be home, and be around my family and friends, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad.
Before I left to visit home, I was talking to some of my friends about their respective trips home, and the common thing they kept telling me was that home is great, but it reminded them as to why they left to pursue their dreams in LA, because everyone back home was still doing the same old things.
For me though, it was a different type of feeling. I really enjoyed being home and being around everyone that I’ve known for most of my life..But I realized that it wasn’t “Everyone doing the same thing” that motivated me to want to come back to LA.
I realized that this was one of those situations where, in order for me to really achieve my dreams, I needed to be willing to risk putting these experiences to the side ( Celebrating my Mom’s 50th Birthday, Going to all the familiar hang out spots with all my familiars, etc) so I can stay focused on what’s important for me to accomplish at this point in my life, and that’s really what gave me the strength to get back on the plane for California with renewed hope and determination.
So now here I am, back in L.A. ready to do what I got to do so I can have some amazing stories for the next time that I come home to visit.