Two months since you’ve been back / How have you been / And are you bored yet
The weather ain’t been bad / If you’re into masochistic bullshit
In May I traveled to Maine for work. If I had my way, I would be living up there, in a cabin, way off the highway, probably on a lake. It’s a dream of mine.
The journey home started with a three-hour drive south on I-95 to get from the work site to the airport. It was a beautiful day, blue skies, and summer green all around. And what else could I do but blare “Cape Elizabeth” by Noah Kahan? I couldn’t not play it. And seeing as I was in a rental car, I probably did some damage to the speakers.
I didn’t know it then (wait, maybe I did?), but I was on the brink of a decision that would lead to a huge life change. There was an overwhelming peace that settled in my body as rubber met the road. I find myself reliving that moment frequently, trying to capture that peace over and over again.
A few weeks after that trip, I was presented with the opportunity to move to Indianapolis for a job transfer. This possibility completely caught me off-guard in the best way. Never before had Aaron and I moved for my job. And it was transferring to a new site but still the same role, same team, same manager, same responsibilities. That was appealing. Indy’s only 3 hours from where we grew up. That was also appealing.
It didn’t take us long to come to the conclusion that I would apply for the role and we would pursue this opportunity. I interviewed, I was offered the position, I accepted, and soon we were on our way to move back to the Midwest.
As we weighed our pros and cons, I had a clear moment while descending the hill towards our house in Maryland. The view of the Susquehanna River meeting the Chesapeake Bay was breathtaking. I thought, How could I ever leave this place?
At the time, the clarity I thought I felt was to stay in Maryland. Looking back, I knew it was a peace that settled within me, similar to when I was in Maine, that the change about to come would be the right one.
Air in my lungs ’til the road begins / as the last of the bugs leave their homes again
And I’m splittin’ the road down the middle / For a minute the world seemed so simple
Part of the peace I felt was that I have done the hard work necessary to heal the trauma and experiences that caused me such angst when I would visit Illinois. Going back for holidays or other events caused me visceral reactions to the point of refusal —
Cemeteries and funerals,
Time spent at the bedside of my dying grandmother,
A year of lost communication,
Bad memories of childhood,
Feelings of not fitting in,
Unreconciled identities.
Passed Alger Brook Road, I’m over the bridge / A minute from home but I feel so far from it…
….The things I lost here, the people I knew / they got me surrounded for a mile or two
I trusted that the work I had done – in my relationships, in therapy – would help me come back “home” and allow me to leave the baggage behind.
My life in on the East Coast for the past decade has been an analog, a parallel universe, where I could work everything out outside of the geography of my trauma.
Now, I’m back in the land of–
Potholes that rattle your teeth,
Flat flat fields of corn and beans,
Gleaming grain elevators,
Fiery and abundant autumn leaves,
Bumpy train tracks,
Fiddlefucking around and shooting the shit,
Frank friendliness embedded in Midwestern hospitality
Giant breaded tenderloins,
Riverbanks surrendered to industry,
Vicious thunderstorms ushering in a cold front.
This version of you / Simply becomes real
And you’re right here with this version of you / To see things as they really are
MPM 2.0: mercy unmasked 