An illustration for a personal essay on the meaning of home and self:
Every time I come home to LA a peculiar sadness hangs over me. Describing the feeling is like trying to catch smoke, but it feels solid and visceral when I drive on those characteristically wide highways, sprawling outlets blurring past in my periphery. I live 5 miles away from the mall that was in Back to the Future, but the magic that Marty McFly bestowed on this place as he leapt through time is long gone.
I remember when “home” still had that spark, when it was my only world and my mind was sheltered but content. I moved, expecting my definition of home to simply expand. But becoming enamored with a new place had an unexpected cost, a sneaking sense of rootlessness signaling that I’ve outgrown “home” . It grew stronger every year until I could barely recognize “home”. Everything was familiar – the roads, the buildings, the people – except the person I was when my love for those things was unburdened by the weight of Growing Up Elsewhere.
I know what infatuation with Los Angeles looks like. Friends who visit give me a taste of it, an ephemeral, shining visage of the city. For a moment, I get an inkling of what this place could be, but it evaporates as soon as they leave, and I am once again shackled by the shell of a past life.
After spending almost a year at home, I’m leaving. But my relief and anticipation is mired with a sad appreciation of everything I’ve endured here over the past months. It’s a place that continues to welcome and provide for me to no end, a love I’m not able to return fully. Not now, but someday, maybe, I’ll find a way to give back in earnest..