There’s something nice about going to your hometown for the weekend, being amongst family and old friends, staying in the house that you grew up in, sleeping in your old room that, although has changed a lot since you lived in it, still enfolds you in its walls and welcomes you in. You don’t quite resume the role that you did as a child or adolescent, but you don’t quite keep your independent adult self either. You sort of become an in-between.

You have meals with someone other than yourself, you cook together, you set the table together, you clean up together. If you feel like having a drink, there’s someone to do that with too. When you wake up in the morning, you sit in the living-room that, in the colder months boasts a view of the bay, with someone drinking coffee or tea, talking, reading or just staring out at that spectacular view.

You forget about the world that you live in for those few days. You go about everything in a relaxed manner and the outside world doesn’t seem as important as it usually does.

For me, going home for the weekend is like a getaway. It’s easy to take myself out of the world because it seems so isolated. Maybe because my house is on its own separate hill, up a steep, almost cliff-like driveway, where cell phone reception is so horrible it’s not even worth picking up the phone if you hear it ring. I, who am attached to my phone, ok addicted, kind of love that feeling of detachment from it, maybe because that’s the way it’s always been there and I have no choice.

Of course the horrible reception didn’t matter so much when I was a teenager because I didn’t have a cell phone. Anyone who wanted to contact me either could do it when I was online (remember aim) or by calling the house phone. No one calls the house phone for me anymore, but I will use it to call people back…if I want to speak to them.

Then, the real world calls you out of your contentment and the weekend is over. You travel back to your apartment filled with the memories of the last few days, nostalgic because even though it’s nice to visit, it’s not your life anymore. You take your key out and unlock your door. You step inside, close the door, turn on some lights. You throw your overnight bag on the floor and you stare at your apartment just for a second. You take in the familiar silence and inhale deeply, slowly letting the air out. You know that you can always go back to the home that you just left, but you know that you belong in this one.

You’ve come home twice this weekend, both familiar in their own ways and both completely different. One fits your past while the other is your present. The outside world comes back to you in full force. You are no longer able to ignore it.