**The Good Reason for Coming Home**
For a long time, I told people I didn’t have a reason to go back.
And in a practical sense, that was true. I had a job in the city, a small apartment I paid too much for, friends who knew the current version of me. I built a life that functioned. From the outside, it probably looked complete.
But every so often—usually late at night, usually when I was tired—I’d think about home.
Not with nostalgia, exactly. More like a dull ache. A place-shaped absence.
I ignored it for years. Until I couldn’t anymore.
—
Home wasn’t a house in my mind. It was a collection of unfinished conversations.
I grew up in a small town where everyone knew your last name before they knew your first. Where leaving was considered a success story and staying was treated like a failure of imagination. I left early, convinced distance was the same thing as growth.
At first, coming home felt unnecessary. Then it felt uncomfortable. Then it felt impossible.
—
The call came on a Tuesday afternoon, which somehow made it worse. Big life-altering news should arrive on dramatic days—storms, weekends, holidays. Not on a random Tuesday when you’re half-focused on emails.
It was my mother.
Her voice was calm in the way that means she’s already braced herself.
Continue reading…
