Successfully Unaccomplished

Homeward Rebound

Why is This Not In a Landfill?

Alas, I dared to blink and a month has past since my last entry. We’ve barely scratched the surface of what it means to be successfully unaccomplished, so straight to work we go.

One reason for my hiatus is my recent trip home. Yes, home. I’ve already contemplated the complex significance that I’ve never ceased referring to my parents’ house, where I was a teenager, as “home.” I’ll also confess that to any stranger I’ve met who asks, “Where do you live?” I reply, “Phoenix, but it’s not my home,” as if the post disclaimer forgives me for living in perhaps the most eco-unfriendly urban sprawl to manifest from the bigger-is-better American dream.

Trips back home are always interesting, especially given the closet in my old room is still filled with high school keepsakes – recordings of mediocre choir concerts, the oversized athletic jacket with my maiden name on the back, gifts that I haven’t touched since that oh-so painful breakup! All of them slightly dusty with expectation.

This visit was slightly more nostalgic, as it happened to coincide with the wedding of an old friend. I was not a wedding guest, but several old classmates, evidently better at keeping ties, were there for the occasion. Thus, an impromptu reunion ensued. I was prepared for an epic awkward moment, but in keeping with tradition, I was wrong. In spite of six mini-we kiddos ruckusing around the room, the gathering was strangely normal. The biggest surprise was that, after 10 years, the only mention of career consisted of one sentence that was initiated by me – None of the interrogating or squinted eyes that I get when I talk to that wretch from Mirror Town.

Two days before my departure, I came down with a 24-hour stomach flu. I’ll refrain from the details and just say that it was disgusting. Still, I can’t help but ponder how strange and ironic that my body, which gets sick once in a blue moon, contracted this nasty pathogen while my own mother was there to offer a helping hand and a bucket filled with macrobiotic remedies. It’s as if my body lowered all its defenses merely because it could.

My husband and I have considered relocating to my hometown, and the prospect conjures certain reservations. Part of me fears that I’ll regress; I’ll rely on assimilating into the same group of friends, on the same plot of sand at my favorite beach, on my mother and her latest placebo cure-all. Then, another part of me wonders/ fears that I’m giving myself too much credit. In order to regress, one would have to progress in the first place, right? For all the varying climates and experiences, I sure have little to show for it – no badges for my sash, no participatory ribbons. What if I’m simply the late-model version of myself with extended seating room? Now that is a scary thought.

During my day of retching and regressing, in a near-comatose state, I observed a commercial featuring a tank-topped, tousle-haired pixie skipping along the beach. I swore, “If I ever walk again, I will never waste another sunny day.”

Twelve dramatic hours later, purged of the sick and inebriated by my newest commercial-inspired philosophy, I was ready to take on the day – in my jammies, chatting with Mom, whilst the sun steadfastly beamed outside.

Oh, to hell with philosophy. I can buy transformation at the hair salon.