dual homes

I have been home for the weekend and I'm going home tonight.

This whole college thing is weird. Home is a small blue farmhouse on the outskirts of Dayton, Ohio. Home is also a twelve by twelve foot block of room in an all-girl's dorm next to a fraternity house (let me tell you how fun THAT is, two o' clock on a Saturday morning) in Athens, Ohio. Home is JD's Custard on a summer afternoon, across the street from Centennial Park, eating lemon custard and raspberries and laughing with friends I've known since I was twelve. Home is also the Women's Center on a Thursday afternoon, curled up on our FAVORITE PURPLE COUCH reading about feminist theory or talking to Susanna about whathaveyou. Home is wrestling with a bunch of overgrown baby dogs in the backyard, grass stains all over my jeans and a five year old yelling about a spider he found in the garden. Home is also cursing and muttering obscenities every time I have to go to the market 'cause it means I have to climb up Jeff Hill (a hill on campus that rivals some doozie trails in the Rocky Mountains, I swear).

But I should be used to this kind of dual life, because home has also always been a large, warm house full of stuffed pigs. Home has always been purple and green and beige snow-capped mountains looming above, promising trails just waiting to be conquered. Home has always been too much ice cream in the freezer, a trampoline in the backyard and a circular drive in which to roller skate, ride bikes, and set off fireworks on holidays. I am used to flying away from Dayton in an airplane, feeling like I'm leaving home, and then not four hours later landing in Salt Lake and feeling that overwhelming surge of familiarity and love, that feeling that can only be described as, "I'm home." I'm used to leaving home and heading home at once. I'm used to having two families, two lives, two places where my heart belongs.

Athens is becoming a third. In some ways, it still lacks. I don't have a family in Athens, not the way I do here or in Utah. I don't have a network of close friends or a history with any one location. All of my memories are recent. But they are building, and already I say, I feel, "I'm going home," when it's time to head back to the Appalachians, the Donkey (my favorite local coffee shop, though the most expensive) and Perks (the cheapest local coffee shop, which is still way better than Starbucks) and classes with professors I admire more than I have ever before admired a teacher or school staff member. I have a network of part-time acquaintances, part-time friends and even a portion of places to avoid due to bad experiences. I've always lived this weird kind of dual life, and I've always thought I was alone in that. But now I see I'm not, that splitting homes and families and experiences is just a part of advancing into the world. I have my childhood (Utah), my adolescence (Dayton), and now... my future, in Athens.

It's time to define myself.