Years ago, my mother warned me of the inevitable: one day, I’d come home from college and find the walls and rooms I’d known for 18 years to be foreign. It happened to her, it happened to my older brother and it would happen to me, too. As I began a new life in Illinois, home would stop being home, and I might as well start preparing for it.
I used to think this change happened two months into college. I saw the first Thanksgiving of my Northwestern life as the last obstacle I had to overcome before I could give up my California upbringing and adopt Evanston, and I was eager to make it Facebook official. “So good to be home!” I typed, minutes after I returned from four days in Berkeley.
Nowadays my mom sends me pictures of the house I grew up in, and this time, it has turned its back on me. First was a grainy image of my room, carpet ripped from the floor, sea blue walls covered up in a dull gray that will apparently make house hunters want to make an offer faster than you can say “this color is gross”. Oddly, it was now the enormous room I had always hoped for.
Then came the shot of the kitchen, which my mother had always talked about one day re-doing. Satisfyingly, it was finally checked off her to-do list, but for future occupants to enjoy, not us. Most upsetting came the shot of my dog looking puzzled in a living room she no longer recognized. Poor old Abby had it the worst. The stress of having various maintenance workers in the house at all hours of the day had caused her to develop an unusual addiction to paper. While we weren’t looking, my dog would gobble up magazines, check books, index cards, receipts, lunch bags, toilet paper, newspaper, junk mail, you name it. We only noticed the problem when these products inevitably, um, resurfaced.
With the exception of concern for my dog’s physical and mental health, I told my friends I wasn’t sentimental, that it was time for my parents to downsize, that I’d never be moving home anyway, that my dad’s commute was beyond what anybody should bear. But when it became clear that my spring break would be my last official week as a Berkeley resident, I felt pressured to distill 18 years into seven days of campus-exploring, cheap-Asian-food-eating, Telegraph-visiting, hill-hiking, photo-taking adventure.
In truth, I did none of these things. In fact, most of my spring break was spent lying in bed playing Pokémon: Black. Or I was on the computer, looking up which Pokémon I should catch in Pokémon: Black. The sense of “Hello, you’re never going to live in this frigid old house again,” never came.
My spring vacation wasn’t the nostalgic farewell tour I had planned, but it was fairly typical. I was once again impressed that Berkeley, at times, was rainier and drearier than Evanston. I spent an unnecessary amount of time at my ski lodge of high school for someone who graduated two years ago. I complained about the unjust closure of the Top Dog tucked inside our local CVS. I made multiple stops at House of Curries, the restaurant where cross country team victories were celebrated, where you would most certainly run into the person from high school you would least want to see and where the only acceptable meal was several side orders of naan (which now, to my delight, came stuffed with mozzarella cheese). And I bought far too many useless souvenirs on Telegraph avenue, like this ridiculous pair of sunglasses and this t-shirt, a lame attempt at showing off my Bay Area pride.
Best of all, I spent some quality time with Pheena, a giant plastic model of a Fin whale in the plaza lot of the Lawrence Hall of Science, a hallmark of UC Berkeley’s contributions to academia, former place of childhood wonder and now loitering spot for when my friends and I had no where to go after making our daily pilgrimage to Mr. Green Bubble for our boba fix. In all honestly, the whale was where I hoped to spend my final moments.
You see, I could picture it. I had maybe even planned it. The sun would be setting behind the view of the Golden Gate Bridge; the UC Berkeley Campanile protruding nobly from the hills below; texts from my mom calling me asking me if I would be home for dinner. All would mark my last moments in the city.
But in truth, and in typically Berkeley fashion, it was too foggy to see anything and I was bored from driving around aimlessly searching for food joints to hang in.
“Let’s go,” I told my friend Anna, also perched atop Pheena. “I wanna go play Pokémon.”
So my mom was wrong. Home never stopped being home. Sure, the house stopped being home, if for nothing else but its impending new owners. My desire to lay in bed, play video games and avoid the outside world? That’s not laziness. That’s knowing moving away would never prevent me from living the same life I’ve always lived.
I’m not particularly thrilled about spending holidays in the Sacramento suburbs two hours away from everything I’ve known (no disrespect, Rocklin, California, I’m sure we’ll get along great). But give me the car keys and I’ll be back on top of Pheena in no time.