I've Still Got My Key And It Works

Something that I really like to do is look at things that have been or happened in my life for a long time, relative to my time being alive of course, and see how they change. An example of something that I do this with is the experience of me coming home.

I haven't lived at home, save a stretch of 4 months at the end of last year, since I left for my first year of university in 2007 and to me, that is a long time. At first when I would come it was a bit of an awkward experience, mostly because I was a really awkward person then. I mean, I'm still really awkward now, but back then I was whole other levels of awkward. It was my first time living on my own away from my family and since I was so completely socially inept, I didn't really know how to act when I came back. For some completely incomprehensible reason, I felt weird about being close and sharing news and feelings with my family. Fortunately for me, my parents were the completely opposite of me and showered me with all the feelings and excitement anyways. At this point I still had my bedroom at home, so it still felt very normal coming back because everything was set up the same.

This started to change gradually in two ways: At school I moved out of residence and started renting a house with a few friends, which necessitated me moving all of my bedroom from Scarborough to Guelph and lead to a situation somewhat notorious among my friends in which Brian, Pat and I were coming home for a Less Than Jake show and I found my bedroom to be replaced with an empty room save for a single chair, without my knowledge. Of course it makes sense that my parents would try to turn my room into something else, as all of my stuff was out of it, but it was just a little shocking. So now when I came home I was riding the couch, as opposed to the comfort of my own bed. Though I returned back to Toronto for each of my first four summers at school for work, I gradually started to become more and more settled out on my own. The other way I changed was that since I was thrust out onto my own and met a ton of strangers at school, I began to get at least a little better at being social and could begin to reciprocate emotions with my family.

The funny thing is that the longer it gets since I initially moved out, the more I enjoy it when I come back home. A terrible cliché that I like to appropriate for myself is "You can take the boy out of Scarborough, but you can't take Scarborough out of the boy." I know it's corny, but I feel like it's an easy way to describe how I feel about my home town. All of my friends from K-W and Milton love to rip on me for it, but fuck it; Toronto is one of the best places in the world and I love it to death. I mean, yeah Scarborough sucks, but it's my shithole to make fun of, y'know?

This is also coupled with the fact that as I've gotten older I've gradually realized what fucking amazing people my parents are. The more people you meet, the more you realize that most parents fucking suck at instilling basic human decency in their offspring and as a result of that I start to appreciate the way my parents raised me more and more every day. I mean, I can write a passable essay, manage a root-3rd-5th on bass, crack a funny joke every 3rd week or so and sometimes channel my excessive discharge of feelings into a terribly written blog post and they love that person unconditionally! When you're a kid you get bummed out that your parents buy you books instead of Nintendo 64, but now I am so happy that my parents worked hard to instill a love of reading in me at an early age. Even just the basic things like encouraging me to follow my pursuits, whatever they may be, are something you think might be really simple but are somehow beyond most parents. So when I'm away from the 'hood, I start to get really homesick and miss my folks. Because they're the best.

:')

A weird thing that's happened recently is how much my house changes each time I come home. My parents have been renovating recently, so it seems like there a new addition each time I come home. My mom has lost a significant amount of weight from eating well and exercising and while I'm obviously very proud and happy for her, she looks way different! My dogs also seem to get way older and fatter and slower each time I come home. More and more, the house is starting to be a completely different entity than the one I left in September 2007.

Alas, I started this blog with visions of it making far more sense structurally and leading up to the point I'm about to make, but veering off-track and things not going your way is just what happens sometimes. I'm writing about this subject because I came home for the first time in a little while today and it feels great to be back home. What I noticed this time when I came back was how much my dad and oldest dog Jack are alike. They're both getting up there in age, have bum joints in their legs and hobble around a bit, shower me with more love than I can handle. What makes it great is that they are best friends and spend more or less every waking moment around each other. People love to remark that dogs resemble their owners and it is certainly true in this case. They are my two favourite people in the entire world.

And I missed them a lot.