She called me her wild child. She said I had a gypsy soul. She said adventure would always be mine. She said to never lose the wanderlust inside of me.

Never lose the curiosity of what was out there, beyond the walls of our home, beyond what we could see, beyond what scared me. She said I was brave and fearless, and that when the day came that something scared me shitless, to run right towards it. She said I had all the qualities she wished she’d had in herself, the ones that made me rise with the sun, and not come home until the stars were all I could see in front of me. I was a dark-haired, dark-skinned wild child that ran barefoot all summer long, snuck out at night to sleep outside, and tested the boundaries I was given for the sake of adventure. She said home was what would keep me grounded. She said that no matter how far or long I wandered, as long as she was alive and our home was standing, I would always feel the pull to come back, even if for the briefest of moments.

She was right. She always was. I just always thought that I would have my own version of home, the place where I felt safe, that I could come back to after whatever adventure I had found. Or that I’d eventually have the very home she grew up in, that I grew up in, and where my own kids would grow up.

I never thought I would lose everything all at once.

I never thought that I would first feel the sting of being homesick when I was twenty-four. I never thought I’d still feel this way at thirty-two.

I ALWAYS thought I’d have a home. Not the place where I went when the day was done. Not the four walls that suffocate me every minute I spend within them. Not someone else’s home that I’m staying in temporarily.

That’s not home to me. I feel caged in and trapped. I don’t feel the chaos of family, the safety net that only they can provide, no matter how dysfunctional or crazy they are. There are no memories in the places I have stayed since I lost my mama and childhood home. The home that my mama made memories in as a child, and then gave my brothers and I some of our greatest memories. That pull she always talked about is always hanging around, more than it ever was when she was alive.

There’s just nothing there when I try to follow it. When I answer the call to go home, there is silence.

Almost everyone my age has the life I always imagined for myself. They have the house that is theirs, the kids, and the love, and the chaos, and the life to fill it with.

The path life gave me is so very different than that, or anything I ever imagined it would be. I will never have the kids to fill the home I can’t afford because of a disease that keeps me from both. I don’t have a mother to run back home to, that will tell me all the right words, and make me feel safe, sane, and whole again. I will never be able to sit at the kitchen table and talk to her while she makes supper. I can never go back to that first bedroom in the hall, the one where I used to lock myself in, and blare Sugarcult and The Offspring when I needed an escape. I will never sit out on the porch roof during sleepless nights, feeling the magic whenever I saw falling stars, and making wishes that didn’t always come true on shooting stars. That same porch roof I used whenever I would sneak out at night. I will never go into my mama’s bathroom and steal her favorite shampoo. I will never take those stairs two at a time, earning myself a nasty shinner whenever I would trip (which was often). I will never be able to gather my favorite blankies and go make myself at home in my parents’ bed whenever I’m sick.

I will never be the same when the next adventure calls me. That gypsy part of me was once so strong because I knew there was a home and mother waiting for me. My reality is that I don’t even have a home waiting for me at the end of the day. My reality is that my health isn’t stable enough to give in to the adventures that take up the space in my head, heart, and soul.

I have nowhere to go. I am stuck in one place that is neither adventure or home. The only pull I can answer to these days is the one to work towards stability, so I can have a place that I can call home again. It will never be the home I grew up in, but we all need space that we can call our own, a space filled with the life we’ve made for ourselves, whatever that may be.

I have never been this homesick for both a place I have yet to go, and for a place I will never go to again. Homesick for adventure and home. I know my mama would want me to find my own safe place again, where I can watch for falling stars, escape with my music, and make new wishes that will come true whenever I see a shooting star.

I also know she would never want me to lose my wild spirit, or my need to explore the world.

I wish every day that I will finally be able to wander the world again. So until I can do this, I will keep my eye out for shooting stars.