Going Home
I stood in the country of my birth, last New Years Eve.
In the historic capital city of Scotland that echoes cries of freedom from both days long ago, as well as folks demanding to be heard in Parliament today.
I gazed out at midnight from the top of my lungs in a castle that illuminated the fireworks above in full bloom. Here: I said goodbye to a chapter in my life and stumbled into one anew.
On my own.
A nomadic traveller.
Just some Giff on the Way.
The Flower of Scotland was on the tip-of-the-tongue of every lad and lass', and as I walked the cobbled streets in the wee hours of the night, long past Rabbie singin' Auld Lang Syne, and just as we were Up in the Morning Early.
Just a train ride from the hospital of my birth, I went home —an ocean away— to begin a year of finding a new one.
I moved twice. From Toronto to London and back to my hometown.
When you are a single parent, the time away from your child can feel like someone ripped an organ from your insides.
As though something that was God-ordained is supposed to be a part of your life in a particular way, and just isn't there some of the time. There's a guttural grief that people don't really want to face; mothers and fathers in the early years of child custody share. Maybe it's blamed on the fault in divorce or perhaps it's really the discomfort we all seem to have with vulnerability and public struggle — but this time parents have without children can be a difficult one.
Both for those who talk about it aloud and on display, and for those who keep it to themselves.
It should get named.
Single parents spend a lot of time grieving the absence of their children in their homes.
Figuring out how to live in this place separate from your child so much of the time is hard. Very hard. My son's mother is an exceptional one, who will always be at the top of my first thank-you's at Christmas & New Years; for her part, she's raising an exceptional young man.
It's not that he isn't loved and taken care of when he's not with me, Mums and Dads homes just aren't the same when they're not with us.
I have moved "homes" almost thirty-five times in my thirty-eight and a half trips around the globe. I've had a lot of homes. But, my home is where my son is. I'm certain of that. Until he's 18 (28?) and out of his mother and my homes, I'll always want him home.
Partially, because he's a big part of what makes home.
So yeah, I went home in 2019. To the town (now city) of my childhood and teenage years. To the place I vowed I'd never return. To the 'burbs I far too loudly criticized for a whole array of irrational reasons. To live with a brother-from-another-mother in the same neighbourhood we played football in the snow at 3AM or chased pilsners across the highway to the historic Burkholder farm — pilsners are a kind of farm animal right?
It might not be home forever. It definitely was more home than I knew. But most importantly, it's home now. When I needed a home the most. Building a home with this incredible kid who just happens to have more than one home.
Grateful for a homeland where I began 2019 anew.
Humbled by a hometown that has helped me remember where I come from.
Blessed to be home.