Homecoming

The young adult has a hard time being clear when they say they’re going home. Is home where they live now or where they grew up? Even though I almost always would rather be in the place I usually live, I have to stop myself from calling Pittsburgh home every time I mention it. This year especially, I have been extra conscious of every time I say Yeah! I’m going home for Thanksgiving and trying to change it to I’m visiting my mom or I’m flying to Pittsburgh. I don’t think I’ve ever said I’m going home when referring to my journey back to the city in which I live.

Ever since leaving Pittsburgh, Thanksgiving has been my absolute favorite time to return home. The holiday comes at the perfect time of the year when your body starts aching for a truly home-cooked meal or the ability to zone out at that same book spine across from where you usually sit. It’s a moment to pace yourself before the rush of December, relearn how to savor 40-degree chills, and celebrate a food-based holiday with relatively low pressure compared to what comes next on the calendar. The break itself is the perfect period to chug a taste of home, quenching your thirst without getting too full.

Thanksgiving held little significance growing up, but I cherished my fall homecoming routine for the past six years. In college, I dropped my public transit affinity for an Uber to Logan Airport, hopefully shared with another friend ditching Boston for the week. Each year, another JetBlue flight from Terminal C. Weaving through security, grabbing a bite to eat, seeing peers with Pitt sweaters leaving the plane I am about to board.

Sometimes, I flew home with college friends I made who happened to be from Pittsburgh, lamenting together how we would get through the next few days without our new core crews. Sometimes, I ran into Pittsburgh friends at other New England colleges at my gate, a taste of what was to come. If I traveled on a less traditional day than the Wednesday before the holiday, I may have been all alone. Another solo flight under my belt.

This flight is one of the most sacred times for my reflections. Back in the same routine every year, a breather after running fall month laps. Relationships pulling closer together and further away in the cat’s cradle of my life, validating statements and refuting them. Or maybe just sitting and daydreaming about that one person for those two hours. Up, snack, back down. I’m not a plane sleeper. I would listen to Ella Fitzgerald or The Weeknd (depending on my brand of yearning) on my flight, watching Boston get smaller and, if I was lucky, be on the side of the plane to watch Pittsburgh’s puncture of a downtown peek through the clouds.

My first few Thanksgivings away from home, I was very excited to come home and be with my family. I was not excited about much else. Did I have friends I wanted to see? Did I not have friends to hang out with? Did it even matter? I would leave out the same airport arrival doors, searching for my mom’s minivan with my dog popping out of the backseat window. I was both so excited and so angry to see her.

Thanksgiving break is when you synthesize the person you’re becoming with the person you used to be. Friction ensues! For years, my confident collegiate self confronted the unsatisfied, unsure version of me from right before my start at Boston University. Hello, old friend. They met up like exes in a coffee shop on a sunny Saturday morning. Months or years passed. Closure chats are my fave, but not this one because I can’t hear what they’re talking about. I just feel it every year.

I often sat in my childhood bedroom upset for reasons I cannot pinpoint. It felt deeper than missing my friends, even deeper than missing my turbulent, cosmopolitan life. Did I really hate growing up here that much? Did anything even happen to me? I was a pretty lucky kid. Did enough evenings alone really take a toll on me when there are real problems in the world? What a privilege to go home and consume your emotions with rage. I was so happy to fall back into my routines with my family, so why do I want to be out of the house all the time?

More sleeps in my childhood twin bed with the floral comforter. The middle school art hung above my head. The Lego Millennium Falcon on top of my desk. All just as I left it. Each year, a few parts get shuffled around. Mom’s storage makes its way into my room. Staying up until 3 a.m. on my phone again swiping through Pittsburgh dating apps. Oh, that girl is gay now? I wonder if that boy three years older than me remembers who I am when we match.

I remembered how to reenter the world. Growing up, I deeply dreaded running into people I knew in the wild. I would always be with my mom, and that did not feel like the superpower that it does now. It became easier to enjoy seeing people in their present form when the images I have of them are frozen in time. How do they reconcile the current version of me with the high school iteration? Maybe people don’t think of these things like I do. But then again, if I think of it — I’m not that special — someone else is thinking this way too, probably even more than I am. I grew genuinely excited to see people. We are athletes from rival teams now suddenly in opposite conferences, excited to see each other in that rare opportunity.

My friends. We pride ourselves on making it out of the Let’s hang out when we get back! limbo. We probably haven’t spoken deeply in months. I’m a low-maintenance friend, so I do not care. We sit at a restaurant and I hear about your life. We are going in different directions. Are we still compatible despite our differences? If so, we pass our annual inspection and will see each other again soon. But sometimes, this is our last supper. Maybe you got a new boo. Maybe I did. Maybe we don’t like the same things anymore and can only bond through reminiscing. Maybe we do not have the capacity to make new memories. Maybe I’m okay with that already, but maybe I want to pretend we still have room for each other. Nevertheless, I’m thankful we intersected. I hope I didn’t think of a way to feel jilted. I probably did.

But the mainstays are mainstays. We drive around at night eating french fries and showing each other new music. We regale each other with personal tales of drama, introducing and analyzing someone a thousand times only for their role to be obsolete by next Thanksgiving. The question What ever happened to… leads to eons of conversation.

This friendship component was crucial when I was in college. Did I want to prove to myself that I don’t cast everyone aside? That I was just as capable of making friends as a kid as I was as a dorm-living kid? That I could grow and change but still be good? I still gave my family time, but I knew we would have fun together. Constantly taking this fact for granted even if I was conscious of it. Thankful for what I have. A place to come home to. My loving family. My nerve. My nerves. Nicer cutlery than the dining hall. I knew all of these things and showed it, but did I show it enough?

The questioning is constant. This entry is littered with questions. This is Thanksgiving break. The constant questioning. Step aside, Passover. The questions were more frequent during college. They irritated me. The frustration would manifest in fights with my brother, spiraling conversations with my mom, and probably something bad with my dad, but I forget what that would have been. Bailing on friends that actually mattered. Retreating under covers like I always knew how.

During this time, I wanted so badly to prove to myself that I could make it out of Mt. Lebanon. Lots of people stayed close to home after high school. Since 5th Grade, I decided I would break out of the mean streets (read: clean, safe, top school district in the state). I did it. I felt like I was better than everybody. I had this hunger, running this race that did not exist. Sprinting around an empty track. It really is fine to stay home. I just could not let myself think that way. I am the product of generations of people who never left. Each break, I used my snobbiness to shield me from sinking into my generational fate — aside from my mom’s mom, a refugee. Her fear is powerful enough to pass through to her grandchild, someone who has everything she escaped for. My rabbi growing up told us of some theory from some rabbi that sleep is 1/60 of death. I felt like every Pittsburgh interlude was 1/60 of living here forever, a fate I clearly ascribed as equal to death.

This clouded view of the world was one I needed to create my best possible college experience. Once the pandemic came, it was the middle of my junior year, and I was ready to relax. I had so much fun with my family without the self-imposed pressure to succeed in the eyes of my Pittsburgh and college peers. With the great unequalizer of the pandemic, the past and present versions of myself were too cozy to fight. I was truly grateful, truly thankful.

That year ended up being the only one I did not spend Thanksgiving with my family. I was back at school taking COVID tests every few days and wearing two masks at once. My family planned on coming to Boston, but something allegedly came up at the last minute. I got the food we were supposed to eat and shared it with other friends whose hometowns were far away. When I came home that semester to graduate early, my parents told me they separated. So much for coming home!

For the next two years, I still flew home from Logan Airport for Thanksgiving, now swapping my Uber from campus with a bus from New Hampshire. At the news station, we could only pick one winter holiday to take off, and I was happy to take off for my favorite time to reflect. I was dealing with real enough problems and didn’t need to be in Pittsburgh to recover, so I realized I truly made it out. Now, I could enjoy my homecoming for what it is, whether eventful or quiet. I relished my trips to Pittsburgh as trips home and was unafraid of feeling that way. I knew I could survive elsewhere. There was no need to compete anymore.

This year, I went home from an airport that isn’t Logan and did so a week earlier than usual. My job is remote, so I can, and Meera joined me. We wanted to see a touring show from the queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and the Pittsburgh tickets were cheap. Homecoming is different now because my mom sold the house, and I’m stationed at her new apartment, kitchen remodel almost done. Bean the dog is barking at other dogs in the building, but it’s otherwise just as tranquil as the suburban house I knew so well.

Homecoming changes when the home you once knew is no longer there. Once my parents split up, I never wanted to be in that house again. My mom is still getting used to this place. I love sitting on the same couch but surrounded by new plants. I don’t really miss anything. That’s the good thing I get from being a snob — nostalgia doesn’t blind me as much as it could.

I remember hearing a friend at the beginning of college say Once you leave for college, you never go home again. In a sense, he was right. The bubble is forever popped, but I am lucky to find home in people and moments instead of places. Hearing my mom humming in the kitchen feels the same now as it felt when I was getting up in the morning for elementary school. Gay people on television love talking about chosen family, the home you build when the people who are supposed to love you fall short. I am beyond thankful to get to choose my mom and brother every day. I choose my peeps holding down the fort in Pittsburgh, and I love sending out I’m thankful for you! texts to my friends in my ever-changing real home, whatever city that is.

Pittsburgh feels like it’s on a separate plane (figuratively even though it literally is, as well) than the rest of my life. I wake up here again and question if I ever left. Very excited for my family’s Thanksgiving that is finally nixing turkey for chicken this year. Whether you’re going home or not, traveling to do so or not, I hope this week brings you good food and gratitude. Also, thank you for reading my newsletter!

My three kids are coming home for Thanksgiving break. What are annoying things parents do when their kids come home after a long time away? I don’t want to accidentally do these myself. And what can I do that they would like?

— Please No Heliflopter Mom

Readers, I received this question IRL.

Coming Home Don’ts:

Coming Home Do’s:

By asking this question in the first place, I know you’ll do great.

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