HOMESICK

I think it is the plight of every 20-something to get pangs of homesickness around the holiday season. It’s not so much that you want to go home but that you’re still sorting out what your home is. Granted, 20-something or not, I doubt "home" ever feels as stable as it did when you were a toddler and the magic of holidays were imprinted upon you. However, the weather has finally turned cold enough for me to viscerally recognize the season as winter and I’ve seen enough blondes wrapped in velvet to trigger my rhythms into recognizing now (late November) as the holiday season.

I have this image of my "home" as the last Christmas my parents were together. It wasn’t a particularly happy time in our household; my mother was overextended (as always from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day) with the holidays and my father’s downward spiral and self-imposed alienation from our family was reaching epic proportions. All the crap aside, we had family in our house and we were all doing our best to be with each other. I remember flopping backwards over the arm of our couch in the living room and lying down to feel the heat of the glowing embers in the fireplace warm the right side of my cheek. The scent of citrus, spices, baking, roasting, cooking, expensive and spicy perfumes like Shalimar, fabric softener and fireplaces hung in the air. It was dusk and my mind was thick with afternoon sleepiness. The sound of Medieval music came through the stereo (always the sound of the holidays to me) and I swirled my dangling toe in time with the music. In the distance, I could hear all our relatives arguing about the finer points of musical theater in the dining room, my father’s keyboard clicking away and I remember thinking, "This is home."

And I miss home. I miss the smell of it. I miss the twinkle lights and the anxiety of preparation. I miss wood burning fireplaces. I miss the dysfunction of family. I miss cider and hot chocolate. I miss the frozen streets of New York as wind comes racing off the river, blows through the street and nearly knocks you into the avenue as you cross. I miss cold so strong it burns. I miss the sound of Jonathan Schwartz’s voice saying, "This is Sunday afternoon, 12 o’clock in the East and 9 o’clock in the West" as he then proceeds to give sports stats in a voice that lulls you to comfort. I miss trying not to slip on the ice in Chelsea as my friends and I stumble through to get to City Bakery for their obscene hot chocolate and marshmallow. I miss putting a bottle of whole cloves through the skin of an orange and then having that to sniff for days on end. I miss the random days off in order to get ready. I miss shopping with my friends for the perfect present for other friends. I really miss looking at the price tag and just paying what the price tag says.

I think most specifically, I miss being around boys I want to hug who want to hug me back. I am physical because I need physical. I really need physical now. I need boys who want to hug me. I love and miss my girls more than anything but I’m getting my regular fill of female contact and there is something about the scent of a man, being engulfed in that smell, those arms and knowing that he wants you there that just sets my mind at ease. It’s not really a sexual thing. When my dad used to hug me, it put me at ease. When my brothers hug me, it puts me at ease. When my gay boys hug me, it puts me at ease. No, it’s not a sexual thing. It’s a comfort thing. Hugs from boys make me safe and protected. Hugs from boys who want to hug me are all the more wonderful. They make my world okay.

My Eastern men would never dare to disrespect me with something so intimate as a hug. My Western men here are all of the European ilk and therefore go the sophisticated bisous route, in lieu of my preferred hug. A world without hugs from boys feels entirely too adult in all the wrong ways. It’s a constant reminder that I cannot have post-pubescent male contact without it being explicitly sexual. It feels worlds away from anything I understand as home.

So here I sit, 8 o’clock at night, classes tomorrow, work not done just feeling blue as the sound of WNYC’s Sunday Baroque echoes in my big, empty marble apartment. (I really should get a rug or something.) For the first time since my first week here, I find myself crying. I’m not bawling or gut-wrenching weeping, just crying at the thought of so many more months without a hug from a boy or any other traces of home.

I just want another moment where I can lay back and think, "This is home."