CALIFORNIA: FIRST INSTALLATION.

I moved away on July 10, 2006. I told SD that I wasn't coming back. And I told my sister. Everybody else received after-the-fact phone calls. In retrospect that was a little harsh, but most quarter-life crises are. A and I went to California for Thanksgiving four months later. Those four months were the longest I had ever been away from my family, and the trip home resulted in hardcore emotional whiplash. I think the whiplash happened because we only stayed for six days, which I know now is not enough time for a prodigal daughter to properly return. I spent those six days trying to see my family and all of my friends, A's family and all of his friends, and negotiate my relationships with everybody. I hardly saw my family, and when I did, things were definitely not the same as they used to be. I felt crappy about everything, and I didn't go home again for eight months. We had Christmas on Christmas Island that year, which was hardly as perfect as the name similarity would suggest.

I went back to California for the second time on July 5th, 2007, almost exactly a year later. I stayed for three and a half weeks. A was living in Pasedena that summer, working on a show in Hollywood. I saw him every Monday and Tuesday, but every other day, I would just stay home and do Simi Valley things with my favorite Simi Valley people. Things were a little shaky at first. There were some fights about things that matter less as I get older. I didn't get to see my dad very much for various reasons. I had to take way too many trains to see the friends that I love. But I did spend quite a bit of time with my mom and the little people (who are all very much taller than me now). Each day that I stayed at home doing normal home things seemed to erase the fact that a year ago I had run away. That trip home was important because it determined my relationship with my family as an adult, rather than as a two-week-old college graduate with a little money and a lot of angst.

Going home for Christmas and New Year's this year matched and improved upon everygoodthing that had happened last summer. There were no screaming matches about the place of women in religion, or gay rights, or Democratic vs. Republican politics (only a bit of friendly banter on the latter). A stayed in Simi and became one of the family. I spent a lot of time with my dad. I saw *almost* every friend that truly matters and didn't have to take a single train. It was a good time. Leaving was overwhelmingly difficult.

There's one thing that has remained constant throughout all of my trips home. The smell of the bathroom at my parents' house. It is, without doubt, my favorite smell in the world. I've spent years trying to figure out what makes the smell so great. I've tried using the same soap, the same laundry detergent, the same cleaning supplies. I've tried closing my eyes and smashing my nose up against the walls, so that later when I go to Home Depot I will be able to recognize the smell of their paint. But I've never been able to replicate that smell. It's just one of those things that makes you want to keep going home.

--buelsy (older and better).