Since leaving home, I’ve noticed that I have the best support system in the world.
There’s the cousin who met me at the airport and found room in her heart and her home and her life for me, when I needed a place to land. She feeds me good food, all the time, and gives excellent hugs. And if I ever need somewhere to go back to, I know I can reach out.
At home, social media and I spent a lot of time together, but we weren’t friends. It sucked away my time. Now, Facebook is the cheapest and most efficient way to let everyone know how I’m doing. And it doesn’t matter how many likes I get, it matters that my aunt appreciated a picture that I took of a cemetery, or that my Dad is able to see the beauty that surrounds me right along with me.
Folks from home have been reaching out to me, telling me that what I’m doing is amazing, yada yada, and that’s nice to hear and everything but the thing that gets me is these are my people, and they’re here, and they’re thinking of me, checking in on me, and I needed that so much.
My mother has been periodically asking me for something called a PIES checkin – how are you doing physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. When she asks me that I have to think about it, and often I notice things that are important. She has a habit of messaging me when I’m at my lowest but haven’t told a soul.
I’ve been calling my Dad every few days during his walk in the morning, which is more or less around lunchtime, for me, and because my body still hadn’t adjusted to the time difference, it’s sometimes essentially morning for me too. It is good to hear his voice and hear him say “I love you.”
The pastor at my parent’s church is there if I need to talk about Auschwitz. I hear that they are all praying for me. I can feel them there.
A college English professor – the one I sort of ugly-cried all over at my graduation – is the only other person I know who has ever done anything like this. She says she wishes she could give me a hug, and she loves me. When I get home, we will talk and compare notes, and she will share a poem she wrote after walking Dachau alone.
My aunts are there. All of them. These are the mother-figures-who-aren’t-my-real-mother that I went to for objective advice before leaving, because they’ve known me for my whole life, and I love them, and I know they care for me. Uncles and cousins, too.
The community that I used to sing with in high school, my chorus room people, the people I used to hang out with in practice rooms, the group of shamelessly strange friends who still get together on New Year’s eve and listen to Kanye and Queen and drink sparkling grape juice at midnight and play a game called distraction Mario Cart in which at least half us end up shirtless… they’re gonna be there when I get home, and I miss them, and we send out-of-context memes across the ocean periodically for old-time’s sake.
The families I grew up knowing through homeschooling cooperatives – we used to put on plays we wrote and go sledding down the hills in the city in the winter – tell me in hearts on Instagram that they’re following what I’m doing, that they remember me, like I remember them.
The people that I found in college are there for me. Always. We laugh all the time, and it’s the best, and it is so important.
My sisters are my strongest roots at home. And I miss them.
I have to believe that my cat loves me even though she can’t text. I can close my eyes and picture myself in her room, and she’s there and solid and warm and breathing quietly. And I know.
I’m gonna need all that love today.