Where the heart is

Whenever life gets to be too much to bear or whenever work stresses me into a near-coma, I do the only thing I know how to do to get through it: I go home.

Life is starting to overwhelm me and I don't want to deal with it anymore. At least not for the time being. I want to step back, regroup and get myself back to whatever is considered "normal" for me. Usually, this means taking a week off from work, packing up some clothes and other necessities and heading to my parents' house in Eastern Mass for some R&R. Given that my last vacation from work was last December -- which I don't consider a vacation, exactly, since I just left town in order to not have to face the sudden demise of my relationship -- I'm starting to feel a little worn. And ragged.

Everything about life is wearing on me; I can't breathe. I find it difficult to think. Just getting out of bed in the morning is a challenge. I dread the thought of having to go into work every day because then I'd actually have to engage with others and frankly, I don't have the energy to try anymore.

I once told my boyfriend that the easiest way to decode my state of mind was to keep track of how often I read. If I'm devouring multiple books a week, I'm in a happy place. If I can barely crack a binding, there's something seriously wrong with my world. Guess which category I fall into today?

I haven't been to my parents house since my birthday last month; before that the last time I ventured back there was around Christmas. Maybe I went home in January or February for a weekend, but given we're at the tail end of August, that's still a considerable amount of time to stay away. I don't really want to go back, but I definitely don't want to be here anymore. I need a change of scenery. Life in a small town is great, yes, but it's a bit lonely and I can't bear the thought of being here on my own for much longer.

I still have two weeks of vacation from work to use up before the end of the year and I'm in such a bad way I don't even feel like traveling anywhere; I just want to go home. Take two weeks off and go sleep in my own bed, eat a home cooked meal every night and not have to worry about paying bills, chasing fire trucks or writing 1,000 words on deadline. I want to simply exist without all the stress that comes with living.

Why is it I feel this way now, when everything in my life is going decently (or at the very least, not badly)? Why do I suddenly feel desperate to move on? Why can't I sit back and enjoy this time of my life? My 20s are whizzing by and I can barely climb out from underneath the covers to participate in it.

I suddenly understand what Dorothy meant when she said, "There's no place like home."

For me, home is more than just where the heart is. It's where I go when I need to escape; it's a place of refuge.

If only I was home right now.