“Going home won’t always feel good,” my sister, who is about five years older than me, said this to me. I was on my monthly cycle and becoming overly emotional over the phone about finances and planning a trip back to my hometown. It had been almost a year since I had returned home after leaving last August. I didn’t have anything against going home, but I also hadn’t felt a pull to since I had left.
While fighting back the tears and trying to pull myself together, my sister and I both decided that I would fly home and spend some much-needed family time. Everything feels heightened when a woman is on her period. Sometimes the smallest decision becomes too big and bad, and you feel as though you are being swallowed whole by the world. This was one of those times, and that’s exactly how I was feeling. Going home felt complicated and packed with baggage I didn’t want to unload.
Now, as I sit here writing this piece from my childhood bedroom, I don’t know what I was so worried about. Maybe I thought I would feel small sitting on my quilts that had been in this room for years. Maybe I would miss my bed at my apartment. Maybe I would miss my boyfriend and our morning coffee ritual. Maybe I would get into an argument with my dad that would make me regret ever coming back. But I felt none of this.
Today I waved my parents goodbye as they took their daily walk. I smiled at them as the car pulled out of the driveway. I felt this sort of calmness and joy within myself. I’m 24 now, traveling back to my childhood home, where the house still stands, just not as full anymore. It feels strange walking through a house that used to be filled with so many voices. I watch how my parents interact with my younger brother, who is pretty much treated as an only child. He’s about to start his sophomore year in college. He’s only nineteen, but he’s probably one of the humblest men I know in this world. He has this sort of softness in him that I hope he never loses. He’s close with my mom in a way that I wish I was, and I see how my dad has influenced him. They both have more time now than they did when they were raising five kids. Now it seems as though they are just raising one.
It makes me happy to know my brother is experiencing a different side of them. It also makes me sad that he’s coming home during summer break to an empty house. I don’t think he shares the same feelings as myself, though. Which is a common experience I have with people. I oftentimes feel this overwhelming amount of emotion for people and situations that don’t need me to feel for them. I feel too much. That’s how I think of it. Some people don’t feel enough, but I feel too much.
Coming home might not always feel good, but this time it does.
Justin Ogilvie, Nights of the Round Table (2023)
TheAdornmentofAdora 
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