between nowhere and paradise

My mother always told me that it doesn’t matter where you’re going as long as you don’t forget where you’re from. Home, for me, was a birthright, one that I inherited from a family that loved me far more than I could ever love myself. Their affection was not bound by distance and no matter how far away I ran, their love would find me.

  

I grew up in Summersville, Kentucky, a town with zero stoplights, one gas station, a Dollar General Store, and a drive-in movie theater. There were more churches than businesses and sweet tea flowed like the rivers of Babylon. My hometown was like the setting of a 1950’s TV Land sitcom, kind of like Mayberry except we didn’t have a police station. If you squint real close to the map of Kentucky, you might be able to see the place where I was raised. It’s somewhere between nowhere and paradise filled with a community of people that I’ve known my whole life. Very few leave and those that do usually find their way back.

A life of adventure was something I spent twenty years dreaming of, a cliché that I  believed in to the very depths of my soul. When you want something as badly as you want to breathe, then you’ll do whatever it takes to have it. There was a hunger in me, a desire to see the world in something besides the glossy pages of a National Geographic magazine. 

In the beginning of my twenties, I was struck heavily with wanderlust. The torn pages of my bucket list told me that if there would ever be a time to chase my dreams it would be in the height of my youth. Clichés be damned, I was going to travel.

When an opportunity to spend an entire year in Granada, Spain knocked on my door, I answered. Mixed emotions and self-doubt plagued me in the many months of planning, but there wasn’t anything that could keep me from getting on a plane and living the life I had always wanted. Some people can live every day of their existence dancing to the same repetitive tune and be perfectly happy, but a mundane life was the last thing I wanted or needed.

Leaving my family was the hardest decision I have ever made. At a time when my grandfather had just recovered from a massive heart attack and my younger brother was beginning his first year of high school, I packed everything I owned into a suitcase and moved to Granada. Goodbyes and farewells were easy because I was motivated and desperate for adventure, but there was a sorrow that came with leaving the ones that have always believed in me.

Europe became my playground and I reveled in my new life. There was a certain beauty in knowing that there was no one else on earth that I wanted to be in that moment other than myself. Between the sangria and paella, I found more happiness than words would never be able to sufficiently describe. It was as though my eyes had opened for the first time and I was seeing life from a fresh perspective. 

It wasn’t until Christmas lights blossomed and Granada became a place of magic that my bliss came to a crashing halt. In all my happiness, there was only one place that would give me the joy of the holiday season. There wasn’t enough red wine and albondigas in all of Spain that would replace the comfort of my family. The idea of an empty chair at the dinner table and the realization that I may not have many more Christmas’s left with my grandparents told me that it was time to go home. 

I paused my adventure and wrote Summersville into my itinerary. 

The tears of joy in my family’s eyes when my plane arrived in Louisville was enough to assure me that I had made the right decision. Returning would only be temporary, a concept that I had to remind myself frequently. There was another semester left in my contract and Granada would be waiting for me to finish what I started, but my priority was reuniting with my family. I became a visitor in my own house, my bed as foreign to me as carpeted floors, but the comfort of seeing familiar faces was worth the reverse culture shock.

Being home for the holiday’s brought a different type of jubilation, one that crept up on me in a way I could have never anticipated. Seeing the people I loved and the twinkle in their eyes showed just how important my return had been to them and as much as they needed me, I needed them too. As the spirit of being home replaced my desire to travel, Spain become a chapter in my life that I was ready to close. Leaving for the second time lacked the same motivation that I had when my journey first started. What I wanted was more time with my family, to make up for the months that I had missed. 

As time winded down like sands in an hourglass, the day of my inevitable departure to return to Granada had arrived. An existential crisis was not on my itinerary but it found me regardless. Was I capable of leaving again? Why wasn’t the months I had already spent in Spain enough to satisfy my hunger? There were so many questions fueling my inner fears and uncertainties and finding the answer was not easy. There was a plane in Louisville waiting for me and I wasn’t sure I would be able to get on it.

My mother prayed for me more than she prayed for herself, asking God to continue to protect me in my journey of self-discovery, to give me the life I had always wanted, and to guide me back home when I found what I was looking for. She knew how important it was to me to be able to see what the world looked like with my own eyes rather than cutting out pictures from travel magazines. She knew better than anyone that Europe had changed my life and that my journey was only half over, even if I hadn’t realized it myself. 

The sun hadn’t yet broke from the horizon line as the day I had subconsciously been avoiding found its way to my doorstep. My mother was pacing in the kitchen, cooking a last-chance breakfast that I was too nervous to eat. Suitcases stuffed with everything I owned stared at me from the doorway of my bedroom, watching as I refused to move from beneath my comforter. A passport and a plane ticket lingered on a mound of luggage as I finally sat on the edge of my bed, feet dangling towards the blue carpeted floor. 

A mother knows when their child is hurting and even though my dream was continuing, she could tell by the look in my eyes that I was questioning my decision. Every nerve in my body was quivering and it felt like each valve in my heart was being disconnected at one time. She put her arms around me in a way that only she could, knowing that she was more scared than I could ever be. I’m her only daughter, her first born. Her love for me knew no distances, but she still couldn’t bear the thought of me living 4,345 miles in another country on my own. I can imagine that her pain in that moment was far greater than mine. 

Loading the suitcases in the back of her 2002 Jeep Liberty was like a game of Tetris, maneuvering each piece of luggage in a way where they would fit perfectly together. With my mother driving and my grandfather proudly perched in the passenger seat, I climbed into the back with my little brother and grandmother. Taking me to the airport was a family affair. They wore smiles that morning even though they knew that I didn’t want to leave.

As the Jeep sped down the highway, I noticed just how remarkable Kentucky truly was. You never notice how wonderful something is until you lose it. The way the branches of the trees weaved from their trunks looked like hands bidding me farewell, the green grass glimmering in the morning sun like emeralds. My face was nearly pressed into the window like a child seeing my hometown for the first time, except I had seen it every day for years and didn’t pay attention to just how beautiful my world already was.  

It’s a tradition in my family to eat at White Castle every time we leave our general area. In route to the airport, I knew that my grandfather wouldn’t be able to pass the magical castle without eating his coveted mini burgers. The smell of them, the greasy onions and soggy buns, made my empty stomach nauseous and unable to eat more than a few bites. As everyone else in the vehicle chowed merrily on their favorite fast food, I sipped Coca-Cola through a straw knowing that it didn’t taste the same in Europe.  

The airport went about the day as though travelers arriving and departing were just another temporary face. Planes rose and fell from the sky like birds, one swooping down to the tarmac before another glided back into the sky. My suitcase rolled along behind me through the busy flight check-in area as though I were pulling cement blocks. Even my suitcase was trying to keep me in the Bluegrass State. With an army of family tucked close behind me, I handed my suitcase to United Airlines and promised that I would see it again in Granada. 

I paced outside of the airport security lines, savoring as much time as possible before I walked away. My grandfather, hands stuffed into the pockets of his dark, denim jeans, had tears forming from behind the rim of his glasses. Standing next to him, hardly five feet tall, was my grandmother holding onto her cane with her bottom lip quivering. With both of them in poor health, I feared that one or both wouldn’t be waiting for me when I returned. I felt selfish, like I should have been happy with all the blessings that I already had without reaching for more. When I hugged the two of them, I could hear the whimpers in their throats. They were letting me go not because they wanted to, but because they knew it would be what was best for me in the end. There was a pair of wings on my back, a trait I inherited from my grandfather, and I was desperate for flight whether I could accept it in that moment or not.

My little brother stood to himself with his hands also crammed into the pockets of his jeans, something the men in my family passed down from generation to generation apparently. He kept a stone face, one that masked his true feelings. Jeffrey and I were like twins, his personality a carbon copy of mine. I knew everything about him, from how he reacts in different situations to the very thought brewing in his head. The only major difference between us was that I wore my heart on my sleeve and he was the master of zen. While my eyes flooded with tears, he held everything together. I’m sure most siblings would be disappointed that their best friend and brother didn’t cry when they moved away, but I knew Jeffrey was going to cry in the car. 

And he did.

One by one I hugged my family, leaving only one person left to bid farewell to. The look on my mother’s face when I turned to her will be forever imprinted in my mind. From the frown on her lips to the pink color on the apples of her cheeks, she did every thing she could to fight back her emotions. She believed the harder she bit her lip, the less her mouth would quiver. Seeing how much it hurt her to let me spread my wings broke what was left of my already shattered heart.

When she put her arms around me, I wasn’t sure if I would ever be able to let go. I could feel flashbacks of my childhood swarm the two of us. Every tear she had ever wiped and every heartbreak she had helped me to mend weighed heavily on my shoulders, knowing that in that moment neither one of us was capable of consoling the other. 

She whispered into my hair that she loved me, to be careful, and to be weary of who I trusted. The pounding in my chest left me breathless and unable to form an adequate response. All I could do was nod and mumble a sound that closely resembled an “okay.” 

I held her at arms length, staring into a pair of blue eyes that genetically mirrored my own. She was the most beautiful woman in the world, even with a painful frown spread across her face, one that I had caused. Wiping away the tears didn’t keep more from coming, but if I was going to leave at all then now was the time.

Every step I took towards the airport security made the tears stream faster, like a broken faucet that dripped with no end. People rushed towards the TSA officers in fear of missing their flights, pulling their carry-on luggage behind them with a sense of urgency. As my clammy palms gripped my passport, my feet came to a complete stop. 

I stood there staring at the departure line, contemplating whether or not I was strong enough to keep going. When you love someone as much as I love my family, it’s difficult to find the strength to let them go. They’re as critical to my life as the air I breathe, a piece to my existential puzzle that I can’t live without. With a pounding in my chest echoing louder than a jet engine, my feet spun around and ran back to the woman that had given me life.

One hug simply wasn’t enough. Two, three, and four more wouldn’t have sufficed either, but time was running out and I needed her. The tips of my fingers dug into the back of her shirt as I cried into her shoulder, her arms clinging to me as strongly as they had the day I was born. Strangers in the airport looked on as the two of us stood silently for as long as we could before I reluctantly pulled away. With a deep sigh, I held onto the straps of my backpack until my knuckles were white. This time when I walked away, I never looked back.

A window seat on a commercial airline in route my first layover had an occupant, one with misty eyes and a nervous uncertainty flushing her cheeks. As the plane soared through white cotton-like clouds, the sun illuminated one of God’s most spectacular views. An increasing distance separated me from my home, my loved ones, but as sunlight poured through the window I knew I had made the right decision. 

With a long descent towards the earth, the tears dried and the excitement of returning to Spain glued the pieces of my heart back into a solid, beating form. My mother had been right. Letting go was the hard part, but what waited on the other side of fear was a life filled with passion and adventure. There was art, music, culture, and all of the things that makes life worth living. 

My body shifted in the uncomfortable window seat until my nose was nearly pressing into the glass. The plane dropped below the clouds, diving towards the earth with me riding near the left wing. A familiar song started playing in my head, one that I grew up enjoying that held enough irony in that moment to bring a smile back to my face. 

A song by Neil Young with the same name as the city my plane was minutes from landing in erased every worry and every doubt. Philadelphia. My voice whispered the lyrics into the glass as my breath fogged the window, remembering that no matter how far away I ran, the love of my family would find me.