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Why You Can Never Go Home

After You've Moved Away

By J.B. MillerPublished 3 years ago 7 min read
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Photo by Laura Fuhrman on Unsplash

It was November of 1999 when I left home. I was twenty-two and ready to begin my adventure. My family was split in the way they felt. It was in the early days of the internet, and I had met my now husband online in a chat room called Hyperchat UK.

We clicked, and I was leaving my little country town in North Carolina and flying to Scotland. At first, my mom didn't believe I would go. Even when I showed her the tickets, she refused to consider I would leave. She kept saying that I would back out at the last minute. It wasn't like I didn't have return tickets. The original plan had been for a months trip.

Several older members of my family tutted as they shook their heads at what they saw as another one of my antics. In their minds, I was always coming up with hare-brained ideas that usually ended in disaster. The rest of the family shook their heads and shrugged. 'It's Brandy. Once she has something in her head, she's going to do it, come hell or high water.' Well, they weren't wrong, on both sides of that fence.

Finally, the day came that I left. My mom had a meltdown. I can still remember her words more than twenty years later. "Pack everything you have, don't leave nothing behind for me to find." 

"It's not like I'm dying, mama. I'm only going to be gone a month." I tried to assure her. 

"You might as well be!" she wailed. "I'm never going to see you again." Maybe she was a little psychic because she wasn't too far from the truth.

Photo by Miguel Angel Sanz on Unsplash

I went to the airport and said my good-bys. Back then, you could go to departures without a ticket, and my god-parents were there to see me off. I flew KLM and budget was a keyword for that flight. I was nervous but excited, and my siblings were excited for me. I was given multiple instructions of things to see and do or what to bring back.

Before long, I was in the air and taking the first steps of my new life. I didn't come back home on January 4th 2000, as I had originally planned. Instead, it was in March, with an engagement ring on my finger and a fiance in tow. My family loved him-possibly more than they did me. One of my brothers even shook his hands, thanking him for taking me to another country for life. Evidently, he was doing a service to America for the deed. I had to remind myself murder was a crime. Funnily enough, it was that brother that walked me down the aisle that May in Scotland.

We couldn't get married in the States due to all the red tape. It was easier to marry in Scotland and do the paperwork from the UK. As a compromise, I took my mom, godmother and aunt wedding dress shopping and let them pick out my gown with me. Unfortunately, what I left with was the opposite of what I went in for. My gown was very similar to Kate's when she married William. I wanted a simple A-line Celtic style dress with wide sleeves. It made them happy, though, so I was happy.

Fast forward three years, and we had welcomed our firstborn to the world. At the age of seven months, we took him home to meet my family. It was chaos. I left home as a single twenty-two-year-old, and I came back as a twenty-six-year-old married mother. Unfortunately, while time had carried on for me, and I had grown into a proper adult, I was still an immature girl in my family's eyes.

It began when my mom thought that we would be staying with her. I told her we wouldn't be, as both her and my step-dad smoked. I refused to have my child around cigarettes. That was my choice as a parent, and I told her that. It didn't mean that she couldn't see him or love him, only that I wouldn't let people smoke around him. I was trying to be nice by not staying with her. I felt it would be rude to demand someone not smoke in their own home.

She was offended. That was the first row we had. For some reason, she expected me to be the obedient daughter I had never been when I came home. As if being a wife and mother would have suddenly turned me into someone that was less opinionated than I had been before. OK, I always helped out when needed. I would do anything for anyone in my family and tend to bend to my elders' will unless it went against my own will. However, I had never been a pushover.

The wars began when they expected me to fit into the slot they had of me in their minds. Plans had been made of what I would do and where I would be while I was at home. But, unfortunately, they didn't ask for our opinions on that. The family assumed my husband would be happy going off with the menfolk and doing manly things, and I would be glad to tote the baby around to whatever relative wanted to play with him.

Photo by Gemma Evans on Unsplash

We said no.

One of the things they failed to realise was not only was this a family reunion type trip, but it was also our vacation. One we had saved and scrimped to afford. There were other things that we wanted to do. I wanted to do things with my husband and child that didn't include my mother or other random relatives.

Suddenly, we were selfish. It wasn't fair that we were running from pillar to post, visiting everyone under the sun, except who we should be. It was bad enough that we weren't staying at my mom's; the fact we weren't there every day added insult to injury. I had to put my foot down, and it may have gotten a little ugly.

Anyone that knew me back in those days knows how fiery I could be. But, over the years, I have mellowed a lot, and my temperament has calmed. But, back then, if push came to shove, I came in like Miley's wrecking ball. So, when my mom's intervention came about how and where I should be spending my time, I let her know my feelings on the subject.

In the end, I had to tell several of my relatives that I was not a child. That I was, 'A grown-ass woman' with a child of my own. In short, I told them they needed to back off, that this was our vacation, and we had a lot of people to see, and we also wanted to visit a few places my husband had never been. That we had even wrangled extra time from hubby's work so we could stay longer because of that.

It traumatised my mother. In her mind, I was still her little girl. The whole time we had been home, she hadn't wrapped her head around the idea that I had grown up. In fact, she never did. We ended up having a similar argument every time we came home to visit. That there were more people and things to see than her.

Don't get me wrong. My mom and I had a great relationship. She was jealous, though, and I was her baby and favourite. So, it felt like a betrayal to her when we spent more time away than with her. But, overall, it's true what they say. You can never really go home once you leave. You especially can't share a house with your mother. Not unless you have the mildest temperament on earth; of which I do not. I wished I could have gone home more often, but life got in the way. Mama died in 2011, and I went home to visit in 2019. It was the first time I had been back since my moms funeral.

Everything had changed. All of the children had grown up, my siblings were all married with children of their own, and no one seemed to have time. We would have made time to do things in the past, but it was harder now. It made me realise how much my mom had done to pull everyone together. Oh, I have regrets; everyone does. It's a case of if I had known, but at the same time, it's a reminder that time marches on. There is always a burn on re-entry.

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About the Creator

J.B. Miller

Wife, Mother, student, writer and so much more. Life is my passion, writing is my addiction. You can find me on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandy28655/

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