Question #193 Going Home
As the holiday's draw near many people are returning to the towns that they grew up in.
What is it like to go home for you?
Thursday, December 20, 2007
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As the holiday's draw near many people are returning to the towns that they grew up in.
What is it like to go home for you?
16 comments:
FIRST!
For me, it's a little different because my family is no longer in Stockton. This year I plan to go for at least a couple nights though to hang with friends and say hi to their families.
I am home. My parents still live in the town I grew up in. Increasingly, I hate it in Stockton and spend most of my time driving around trying to see as many people as possible and answering the same questions over and over. No, I am still not married. Yes, I still like 'SanFran'.
The up-side is that I really do like Christmas, I have some very cool family members too, and a ton of my friends are stuck in a very similar situation. We keep each other company and I can hole up in their houses to recoup from the "So, when are you going to finish school?"
Its kind of weird because, while most of my friends are from my hometown, most of my friends don't live there. Still there are those few that I am stoked to see.
There are always the traditions I enjoy:
Forest Club on xmas eve
b-fast at the maple
Getting called a "sellout" by Vance because I don't live in Ukiah anymore
Being told that I ditched my "real friends" to hang with the "cool crowd" even though the supposed "cool crowd" I am there with is "Phil and Jake" and we just spent 3 hours talking about Guardian era Alpha Flight vs Vindicator era Alpha Flight
listening to k-wine
discovering what horrible tragedy has occurred in my family this time
Playing spin the bottle with Jon, Pete, Trevor, Jake, Phil, Smith, Victor and optionally 1 girl.
Smelling the smell of wood fireplaces.
Walking through the most dangerous spot in all of California: The Sunset parking lot with rocks in our pockets "just in case".
&c, pp.
Mis padres are still living in Stockton and that is where I'll be going 'home for Christmas'. There is a lot going for Stockton at Christmas, at least for our family. My dad usually does some insane Clark Griswald light display and indoors sets up his miniature village which he is proud of. My mom has the place decked with all sorts of 'dec' and usually has heaps of candy and food gifts from her Kindergarten class that we get to eat. There is always a fire and a blender filled with whatever holiday drink my dad has concocted. Its very hard to go anywhere else in Stockton because of these things.
Alas,
We hit up Dave Wongs with family friends on Christmas Eve. Paul and I see how many Albertos drive thru trips we can pack in before heading back to the bay. We take the dogs to the park, begging one of them not to go swim in the delta. We hit up Gian's deli for cheap lattes and pannetonne. We go to Cocoro and eat a roll named after my sister (asians love her). I meet up with Genevieve and other former Stockton kids (Davey-Cakes, you are more than welcome to join us!), and we meet at our parents houses to avoid running into the people that still live there that we really don't ever want to have to see again. I mostly just eat too much and fall asleep in front of the fire. Its really nice actually.
I am already home cuz i finished college last friday and stuff....
Its okay...its an adjustment and cuz i got home a little early theres been no one here to kick it with really....
But ukiah is rad in its ways...driving on not crowded open highways is fun...I drink lots of wine when i am home...I hang out with my old friends that i see like 3 or 4 times a year now...
Like sometimes its pretty rad to run into somebody you have not seen for a while...but other times when you are trying to like grab a 12 pack at safeway and you see 10 people who ask you the same questions cuz we all miss eachother...its a little annoying...
In general i enjoy it, although it takes some getting used to...
My situation is pretty similar to tums' and even more similar to Joe's (because "home" is Ukiah), especially the answering-the-same-questions thing of the former and the horrible-tragedy-in-the-family thing of the latter.
But it's good to spend some (SOME) time with my family, despite the guilt-trip they give me for not spending enough time with them. It's also good to hang out with both the friends I frequently see in SF, the ones from Ukiah who I infrequently see and the ones who live in some other part of the country who I rarely see.
I don't really have a "home town where I grew up" to go back to anymore. No one I know lives there. My immediate family is on the East Coast and they are escaping to warmer waters for the holidays. I have made Los Angeles my home so that is where I will be.
tums, jake and joe all pretty much summarized it for me. i think this is the first time if chosen to go to my parents/birth town in a few years. typically i like the ghost campus were i work during the holidays which allows me to work/practice my drinking while all the professors and students are gone.
my fam just came to visit me so i don't really have any impetus to go see them. i'm really just going to ukiah to see my friends.
i can't wait to get to the forest and start drinking. hello ukiah, goodbye liver.
Heading back to Stockton is always bittersweet. Especially because I only just [relatively] recently, got the fuck out.
Time spent at my folk's house usually involves moderate to heavy drinking, copious amounts of food & good music and the Scottish Royal flag flying high. And then loads more of drinking & maybe some of dad's "pirate music" (as my mom and I prefer to call it.)
From time to time, I will spend a bit too much time out with my friends and the party people back at home get jealous and throwing guilt trips down. And then I start feeling like I have a curfew. A curfew at 27. This is the life of a Lawrie child.
Eventually my brother will do something that pisses off the "party gods" and they lay off of me until my hangover has subsided.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat. x8
One more thing...a gigantic amount of Wii playing is always on the itinerary while at home.
everyone should know a few things about Beth's Dad, because he is the stuff of legend.
1)His name is Mike Lawrie (yes like Bad Boys "I'm Mike Lowry!")
2)His pirate music is not pirated, its just music that you'd imagine pirates listening too.
2a) Sometimes he likes to speak like a pirate... well we all do.
3)The flag is flown whenever he parties or bbqs, and the neighbors all know to come over for beer. How sweet is that?! He even flies the Scottish Royal when the princess is in residence... yeah, that would be Beth.
I am going home to the Bay.
I grew up in Palo Alto but now my mom lives in Millbrae so I go there.
I guess I consider Tokyo my home too but I am not going there.
Going home is sometimes stressful because I have to drive to Palo Alto to see old friends and then to SF to see college friends. And then Cupertino/San Jose to see family. I feel like I am spread so thin I can't really hang out with everyone, but I have recently learned to allot my time wisely.
I rarely go home.
For a long time, my ex boyfriend lived in the condo next door to my parents..........that sucked.
Now........going home is weird. I always end up running into people I'd rather not see and don't run into the people I'd like to see. I'm sad because it's getting very sprawly and annoying to drive around town. It's a little discouraging to see people who never left and who don't really care about anything outside of Redding. And, as was my lament growing up, there's not much to do there, especially in the winter months.
My parents live in a teeny condo and so we have to get a hotel room if we want to stay, and it's not worth it just to drive up for the day, so I rarely go home anymore. I think I went once this year.
Over all....it's nice to see my family, but it's nicer when they come here.
Sweet summary, Tiffany. Thanks :)
whoa! people from stockton? no way! i didn't expect that. i'm from lodi but my parents currently live in woodbridge, but same diff. but yeah, lodi is small, so it's just driving around and hopefuly not running into people you dont want to. but there's also the luxury of just staying in by the fire and hanging out with fam and jut having time to chill.
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