You Can(t) Go Home Again (Texas version); or, Au revoir, les Texans

Ah, vacation. There are relaxing vacations. You know the sort---books on the beach, sleeping late every morning, eating whatever, whenever you want.

Then there is the "travel vacation," where you attempt to visit every family member, friend, and favorite spot in one or more locations during a tight schedule.

This summer brought my Renewal Agreement Travel (RAT), which is our free trip back to our Home of Record (HOR). Our trip to Texas fell more into the 2nd category than the first.

The adage "you can't go home again" is a theme in countless songs and poems. It's the wistful end to a movie. It's the bittersweet epiphany of a novel.

Before we left to go back to our HOR, we heard this from several GTMO friends, too.

"It's your first trip back to Texas in two years?" 

"Yes, yes it is." 

(tsk tsk) "Well, you know what they say." 

"Who? What?" 

"You can't go home again." 

And to all of you who like to tell me, "I told you so"---it is true. 

Texas---my "home of record"---was never home to me. I wasn't born there. I had only visited it a handful of times before moving there in 2002. My great-great grandfather is buried in San Antonio, yet in ten years of living there,  I never made the two hour trip to see his grave. He got to Texas for work and eventually died there, but it wasn't really home for him, either. His life work (managing national cemeteries) took him all over the country, and I think I inherited his peripatetic nature.

As much as I tried in 10 years, I don't connect with stories of cowboys and the Mexican War and the homesteaders and the outlaws. I learned to appreciate Keeping Austin Weird, although it has nothing on Olympia, Washington, or Portland, Oregon (but good try!). I love the town of Georgetown with its marvelous town square and beautiful, historical buildings, and Texans truly warrant the positive reputation for being friendly, outgoing, and gracious. 

I have a son who is a Texan by birth, but left after six years. My oldest lived in Texas more years than his birth state, yet he is just as likely to tell you he's from Washington than there.  Maybe he has the same identity problem I have---just because you live somewhere for a long time does not mean it's home. 

Welcome to Texas, y'all! ABIA

This doesn't mean that I didn't hope to feel like I was back where I belonged when we finally returned after two years. I really wanted to have that connection to place that comes with "home."  As the plane taxied into the Austin airport, I thought about how I would feel seeing our home we sold while living in Cuba. Would I get choked up? Would I cry? Would I feel a profound homesickness? 

I finally mustered up enough courage to drive by---alone, as I wanted the moment to myself---and I felt, well, nothing. Zip, nada. The house was purchased by investors and flipped. It's now mid-century modern style, which isn't my thing. Parking in front of what had been our home,  I didn't feel the expected emotional tug on my heartstrings. I didn't want to ring the doorbell and tell the owners that "this used to be my house!" or take pictures. Instead, it is someone else's house, someone else's home. 

It felt good to let go and not have that attachment. 

I felt the same way about the few favorite food places we got to visit. I've missed Tex-Mex food and Texas BBQ terribly. I envisioned myself eating pounds of brisket, migas tacos, my favorite Jägerschnitzel from Walburg, and enough homemade tortilla chips to feed a small army. 

In my mind, every meal was going to be an "event," a homecoming of sorts or celebration of what we've missed. 

Instead, it was just food. In many cases, we just didn't have enough time to go where we wanted.

Texas' perfect food: the Breakfast Taco.
Make mine a Migas from El Charrito in Georgetown, Texas

Many places are smaller and quainter than I remembered about our town; others are much more beautiful than I remembered.

When you build up a time and place in your mind for two years, your imagination sometimes runs out of control. You always imagine perfect weather and everyone you encounter along the way will be accommodating, kind, and thoughtful. There is never out of control traffic. People you want to see will not be out of town on vacation. It's easy to plan around what you want to do.  You aren't bleeding money for meals and rental cars.

Reality is much less glamorous.

Texas will always be my core set of friends who helped us for ten years. It's the friends who dropped everything and rushed to entertain our second grader as he waited for his baby brother to enter the world. It's the friends who offered to babysit so we could have "date night." It's the colleagues who became family, and we shared everything---marriages and divorces, childbirth and miscarriages, the joys and heartbreaks of raising kids. I attended their weddings, cried when they lost parents and grandparents, celebrated birthdays and anniversaries, and helped them move into new houses.

I am sorry I didn't get to see some of my friends who made Texas a wonderful temporary home, but because they are who they are---more family than friends in many cases----they understood that I needed to say goodbye and move on down the road after a week and a half. There are times that you just need to close one chapter so you can continue. This trip made it crystal clear that Texas is not my home. 

Texas is in the rear-view mirror, and will probably remain there much longer until my next visit. There was some bittersweetness, some joys over how some things have changed, frustrations over others, and I felt some closure on unfinished business (such as the house) at the time of our hasty departure when we suddenly picked up roots and moved to Cuba .

Welcome to Mississippi: MS River Bridge in Vicksburg

Now that I am back in Mississippi, I am finally relaxed and experiencing a real vacation from fast-paced life. I may have to drive 20 miles or more from my parents' small town to find things that were readily available in Texas, but I also find that island life in GTMO has taught me to be more patient (and to realize that food and shopping aren't the most important things in life---or in a vacation).