I Want to Go Home

Natalie says that all the time, often when she is sitting in our living room so it sounds nonsensical but I think I know what she means.  She wants to be in a place where she feels comfortable, safe, relaxed, a place she belongs.  That place is not the living room when she has just gotten into trouble for throwing something/refusing to put on her shoes/the list keeps going like the Energizer Bunny.  "Home" is not necessarily a physical place but a state of being.  I want to go home in both senses of the word.

I've mostly adjusted to life in Delaware.  Our area is a safe place to raise kids as local metropolitan areas go.  There are nice parks and good schools.  After four years, though, it's still not Home.  I miss street lights and walking to the corner store for milk.  I miss diversity and a sense of camraderie with everyone sitting on their stoops in the warm weather.  Mothers could let their young ones roam with the security of the collective neighborhood eye on them.  Now, I don't know most of my neighbors' names while where I grew up, everybody knew everything about everyone else.  That could be frustrating but mostly it was comforting.  One knew where everyone stood and who could be counted on in an emergency.  Here, I don't know what I would do if I needed help in the middle of the day.  It's lonely.  The Phillies' amazing play-off run has really reminded me once again that I'm a stranger in a strange land.

Here in DE, you are as likely to find Phillies gear as you are to find Orioles jerseys or Nationals hats.  How can one area support several teams?  It seems un-American to me but I guess when you don't have a team of your own, you get to pick and choose.  A team buffet feels weird to me.  At home, you live and die by your city's team.  (In Philadelphia, you usually die but that's okay.  It makes us tougher.)  You can no sooner pick your own team than you can pick your own parents.  Baseball is my least favorite professional sport but the Phillies are in my blood.  It's how I was raised.  Sounds silly but it offends me to see my team sharing merchandising space with other teams like they deserve equal billing.  Football season is even worse.  Places around here have the audacity to sell Dallas crap along with beautiful Eagles green.  What?  WHAT???  Bogus and so typical of Delaware, land of no professional sports and no personality of its own.

I know I'm a snob for feeling this way.  For seeing Delawareans wearing Phillies gear and thinking, "Whatever, poser.  They aren't YOUR team.  They are MY team.  Check my birth certificate."  The longer I'm away from home, the more attached I grow to it.  The stronger my loyalty and city pride.  I don't know if I could ever live there again though and that might be what makes me angriest about how living here has affected my core.  DE has made me soft.  When I take the kids to my Gram's in South Philly, I'm too afraid to let them play outside.  Random street violence scares me now.  Maybe that is more from being a parent than from living in the suburbs.  Maybe both.  So I feel like a man without a country.  I definitely don't want to live here but I'm not sure there is a place for me at home where my children can get a good education and walk the streets freely.  It reminds me of a line from a Neil Diamond song:  "L.A.'s fine but it ain't home, New York's home but it ain't mine no more".  Substitute DE for L.A. and Philadelphia for NY and you have my state of mind these days.