Homeless

My parents liked to say that I was born carrying the weight of the world. They pointed and clucked their tongues at my shaded eyes and furrowed brow, worrying that it was not normal for a toddler to examine the eyes of each person she came across as though she was searching for possible betrayal. I was born in stark contrast to my older sister, first grandchild and promised joy, and in even greater contrast to my younger sister, the dimpled darling of everyone’s hearts.

It made no sense to anyone why a child should be so sad, so quiet, or so contemplative. As for me, I do not claim that my toddler self could prophesy tragedy on a thirty year delay. I only know that I grew up fundamentally uncomfortable in my own skin, afraid of my peers and clinging to sidelines and wallpaper. I preferred the solitude of books and self-made games to the laughter of friends and trembled through puberty expecting cruelties and judgement that never came.

It is not the purpose of this blog to chronicle the complicated and often painful history of my family. After all, who comes from a painless family? I mention it only to make a single, salient point. From the time I was a very little girl in a broken family to the time I was a delusional woman in a broken marriage, I have felt homeless. All of my favorite books as a girl chronicled the story of a protagonist finally finding her home or finding her place. Aching and obsessed with the concept of home, I bounced from friend to friend, boyfriend to husband, and place to place trying to find my home either in places or people. In secret and in shame, I compulsively designed blueprint after blueprint of dream houses that I could never afford to live in, dream lives I would never be successful enough to live, and dream children I feared I would never have.

And to what end? I have felt unsure of myself and unwanted for the majority of my life. I have wasted over thirty years trying at times diligently and other times lazily to figure out who I am and why I’m here. And at the pit bottom of it all, I can tell you only one thing with absolute certainty. On the day that Lizzy was born, my entire identity crystallized into a pure and uncomplicated conviction: I was born to be her mother. All the itching and sneaky corners of my personality seemed to shrug, settle, and disappear. This was what I had been waiting for, what I wanted, and who I was meant to be.

Within the first weeks of her precious life, I began to realize that the home for which I had been searching for my entire life was finally realized in the personhood of my daughter. Lizzy was my home, and everything that I was could finally be at rest in that sure and perfect knowledge.

And so I bring to you today a question that you cannot answer for me. If Lizzy was my home–and Lizzy is dead–then hasn’t my homelessness now taken on a dimension of eternity? If my home lies now on the other side of death, what do I make of the time I have left here? And if it is meant to be a journey or a quest and not a destination, then do I actually have the strength to complete it before giving up?

And, perhaps most importantly, am I a good enough actress to be able to create for Cecilia the fabled constructs of a home that I can no longer feel? Because if it is equally true that Cecilia is not my home, my destination, my journey, or my quest, it is also true that she is the reason why I do everything that I do. And true, too, that every child deserves at least the illusion of home.

As to what Cecilia deserves, it is far more than I can ever put to page. The fact that my home has exited this world, fading to a place where I cannot follow, is a reality that, all unspoken, has haunted Cecilia since before she was even born. The best I can do with what has been given to me is to try to give Cecilia the kind of childhood where she can grow to maturity in complete ignorance of what it means to be homeless, in any nuance of the word. And when this has been achieved, and the time is right, I can perhaps set off on the longest of all journeys to find the home and the child which has been taken from me.