More About Home

Sometimes you want to ignore the little things in life that remind you of what you need to do, because what you want to do is putting so much pressure on you. There was the wedding and then TransPride and my wanting to be wrapped in the arms of the city that gave me life, but it was the smallest of things that brought me to tears. He noticed the city lights shining brightly through a gap in the trees and gasped, "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." And on my lips the words sat in silence, "I know." After getting lost and ending up in the exact opposite place we needed to be, I took him to the overlook on Mount Washington. He took a picture. I didn't need to. I could never forget that sight, or how it seemed so much bigger and scarier when I had first visited eight years ago. I took in the scene as slowly as I could and let it wash over my body like a warm bath, little memories rising up and popping like bubbles in the tub. And then I could hold back no longer. I cried as softly as I could and muttered so only my own ears could share the secret: "I am home."

Flash two weeks into the future. I am sitting in the still unoccupied massage room of the newly opened gym at which I had begun working, crouched over my dying cell phone as I attempt to charge and talk at the same time. She didn't answer. She didn't answer again. She was talking to her other son, which I had not known until she called me back a few seconds after receiving a simple text: "It's important." I unleashed tears. And fears. And everything that I had been fighting the last few days. It was settled in just a few minutes. And I had made the decision myself. She would not tell me what to do. She did not tell me what I should do. She waited for me to utter the words myself: "I want to come home." So I packed up my things and made my coworkers aware of the situation, and as I stooped and slung my bag over my shoulder to begin the longest ten-minute walk of my life, a key fell to the floor. The sticker from Lowe's hadn't even been removed. I hadn't seen this key in almost a year. It was the key to the front door of the very first place I called home.