Day 18: It'll always be home to me...

To continue on my sentimental journey home this weekend, I have to say, Rochester will always have a special place in my heart. It's where I grew up, where I graduated high school, where I learned to drive and navigate from Ontario to Victor, through the Can of Worms to Downtown, to Henrietta and to Greece. It's where I returned to find consolation and climb out of the darkest time in my life, where I found my friends who will be by my side for life, where I earned a diploma, where I crashed and totaled not one but both of my parents cars, where I bought my first car and where I thought I started to think I could settle before getting the call to join the world of news and launch my life of moving among markets. The ol' ROC will always be what I think of when I think home...

That is, despite the fact I don't actually have a home here anymore! My parents divorced a few years ago, therefore selling my childhood home. My mom moved to Buffalo and my dad and I don't really mesh well, despite him still living in the area. So I'm kind of an orphan in my own hometown. It's strange driving into the area I consider my homebase and not really having a spot to park it. Luckily, I have plenty of good friends willing to put me up for a weekend, and my mother seems to be dogsitting throughout the city, so there's usually a place to lay my head. However, it's funny how home really is where she happens to be. Or in my friend Chad's apartment, or Ilona's house... It's the people I'm there to see, to spend time with, to laugh with and reminisce with, to hit up old haunts or grab a garbage plate with that makes me feel home. It may always tug my insides when I drive by my childhood home and see the strange cars outside and fight the urge to turn into the driveway, but it gets a little easier each time. And, the more I visit, the more I realize that Rochester will always be the homebase, and the people that welcome me there always make me feel like I've come home.