By Rafael Solece
There is a funny thing about leaving home. It is never what you expect it to be like. When we are young adults on the verge of adulthood anxiously awaiting the moment that we can leave our parents home we expect it to be a liberating and a joyous occasion. We expect to step out into the big world and conquer it at the very first attempt. Because after all we are idealistic, and brazen in our fears, and most of all we're motivated by that powerful word INDEPENDENCE. We look forward to the possibility of responsibility, despite not truly knowing what it is. Yet something deep inside of each one of us screams out "Give Us Free!" Then given the moment of an unlatched door we bolt like thieves in the night racing away from the home that has sheltered us for so many years.
For lots of us leaving home is completely the opposite of anything that we ever expected. It can be a scary eye opening experience, rot with frustration and emotional upheaval. Full of responsibilities that we were ill prepared to take on. Laddened with heart break, troubles, disappointment, and laced with bad decisions I know for me I expected the first time that I left home to be the only time that I would grace my mothers door step, other than the occasional visit or holiday retreat. I bolted like a lion after a loan gazelle on the African plane. I was hungry for the freedom that the world outside of my mothers doors yielded. Despite being ill prepared and irrational I stepped out into the world with the courage of my convictions. I never imagined that I would have to go back home.
So when twice I did make my way into the world and fell short of my own expectations. When life had happened and happened over and over again to me, and it forced me to concede my own defeat and run home with my tail between my legs. I felt that I didn't know that I would ever be able to leave home again, even though I very much wanted to. I guess that some part of me felt that I might fall again. That I wouldn't achieve anything, because i didn't have the skills to do so. I guess that some part of me felt that life was unfair and because love had beaten me that all I had was the safety of home. I guess i felt that some how in my youthful life experiences that I had failed to many times and the idea of failing again angered and repulsed me. So instead of running back out into the cold cruel world I hide myself away in the shelter my child hood home. Which i think was slightly easier than it should have been, because my mother wasn't yet ready to let me go anyway. And so it was easy for me to wade in the water this last year. Not really trying, and not really failing, but feeling slightly unaccomplished.
Then there is when it comes time for a man to leave home. When a man has matured in such a way that want no long dictates his actions but necessity makes for the more responsible choices. As 2010 came in pushing me closer to my dreams and aspirations I found myself compelled to make adjustments in preparation for my bright future. Problem was that in order to do that I would have to deal with the issue at hand. Conquering my own misguided fears. The biggest of those steps was stepping out on my own again. But this time for real. This time because I was prepared. this time because the experiences that I had gone through in my first attempts at life had yielded some valuable lessons learned. This time because instead of running away I was actually prepared to run toward something. I was ready to run to life. SO it was no surprise to me that when I woke up one morning something struck me deep down inside and i knew it was time to leave. The thing is like before it wasn't a hard decision. I did not hesitate, but I felt confident, competent, and eager. The difference was this time I was mature in who I was. And so I began to make preparations for my life outside of this place. For life outside of my grandmothers home.
Funny thing though; this home, this house i live in now is the same house that I grew up in. It is the house where I started my first day of 1st grade, my first year of middle school, and my first year of High school. My brother grew up here, and all my fondest memories of life were trapped inside of these walls. Every family holiday. Every family dinner. Every nightmare, every fight, every tear, and every monstrous fit of laughter were drenched in these walls. My sense of family was formulated in here. the memories of my late grandmother and all she taught me as a child to an adult were reared in this house. And the sweat of my mothers tears were soaked between the floor boards. But most of all the foundation of me was poured here. This is where I first became Rafael Solece.
So my decision to leave this time meant that this house would not be in my family anymore. My decision to leave this time meant things were about to really change. You see all I have be talking about this move. Counting down the days till i finally walked out of the hood, out of this house that had been my home for the past year. Yet as I prepared my things for that finale day of exodus, packing bags and boxes, something struck me deep down in my soul. The house that I had called home for the last twelve months was in actuality the the place that I had called home for most of my life. Two and a half decades had gone by since my grandmother had first purchased this dwelling, moved us all in. It hit me like a tone of bricks over the head. The kitchen where she had prepared so many family meals, the dinning room where she had entertained, the rooms where we had lived, loved, cried and fought. They would no longer be our rooms. And as the thought struck me I began to cry. After Saturday I wouldn't have a home anymore.
It scared me, but most of all it hurt just a little. Hell who am I kidding; it hurt a hell of a lot.
Though no one was forcing me out. It felt like something was being taken from me. I guess because it was. All my memories, my childhood, my grandmother; they were all being taken from me. There wouldn't be another place like 549. And as reckty, old, lackluster as this place was a peace of me wanted to stay. Despite knowing that it was time for me to go. People talk about seasons all the time. They talk about how God places things, people, and places in your life for a season. SO that you can get what what you need from them and then he moves you on to a different season, a better season, the next season. And you have to be willing to let go. I know its time to let go, and I know
I have to let go, but this time its hard to let go of the place I called home for so very long.
I have until Saturday, but somehow I know these next couple of days are going to be the hardest days
of my life...
