what is the place that you’re always trying to get back to?

At dinner a few weeks ago, a friend asked all of us at the table a question: what is the place that you’re always trying to get back to?

Tonight, I am thinking a lot about that. Driving home from a Super Bowl party, I had the overwhelming urge to cry. I do not know why. There are so many possibilities: the shame I investigated in therapy, missing my dad, my grandma’s death, being around so many old faces, my grandparents getting older, life continuing to move, a sense that I don’t know myself, my craving for and avoidance of intimacy, the political landscape, climate change, the love I have for my dog, hating my job, feeling like I’m wasting my days, nervous I have cancer.

Overall, my cup is full, the water has spilled over the lip. It is now spreading on the linoleum counter, running down the cabinets in quick rivulets and creating a puddle on the floor. I have slipped in the puddle. From down here, I’m closing my eyes and asking myself: where is it that I want to be? I am so tired from moving so fast, but where am I trying to get to?

The quiet of the desert. The warmth of my mom’s bed. The scratch of my favorite shirt from six years old.  The sight of my dog chasing lizards. The music recommendations my dad would email. The hike-out of backpacking in Banff. Dinners at the kitchen table with my sister and brother-in-law.

I am hoping to find myself, the little girl who loved being exuberant and basked in attention.

I am going back to quiet. Stillness. I am going back to the opposite of repression. I am coming home to honesty.