Returning to the Roots: Lessons from Moving Back Home
Returning to the Roots: Lessons from Moving Back Home
Let’s face it, life is super easy nowadays, but at the same it is very difficult. Technology allows us to perform the unimaginable, but the crushing debt that many people have and the slowly crumbling establishments are not making life any easier. It is stressful out there. Many of my friends already have, or are planning on getting married or having kids, and I feel like I am not there yet. I think back to when my parents told me that they were married by the time they were 21 and bought their first house by the time they were 25. Both parents had solid jobs. My father is still working at the same company that he has worked at almost his whole life. I am almost 29-years-old and just started graduate school and have an overwhelming amount of student loan debt, which is just going to increase over the next few years as I finish my graduate degree.
I recently just moved back in with my father for a few months to reset. I felt pretty embarrassed about the decision since I had a decent full-time job working in the mental health field and I had a pretty solid network of friends and supports in Vermont. Now I am living in New Jersey revisiting my roots. I’ve only been for under a month, but it has been interesting so far and it is teaching me new lessons about life. Here are some things that I am learning from the transition.
1. I am Privileged and Grateful: I have to say, even though my home life is not perfect and the family dynamics are a little dysfunctional, I am definitely very fortunate and grateful to have a safety net to fall back on. At first, I thought it was going to be terrible, but after the first week I began to realize that some people do not have a safety net to fall back on. I have been eating home cooked meals many nights and going out to catch up with old friends. I might have lost my job, my apartment, accrued some debt, and left my life in Vermont, but I still have family and friends that still love and support me. I am sure there are people out there that do not have that. It has been making me think that others may not be as fortunate and if someone lost his or her job or apartment they might be living out on the street begging for food and looking for shelter. I am definitely grateful and also privileged to have a place to come back to and have safety net underneath me.
2. The Universe Puts You Where You Need to Be: I did not want to move home. I actually fought the idea of moving back home and was going to try everything in my power to not move back. I felt weak and embarrassed that I had to make the decision. I guess this mostly comes from the observation of watching close friends starting to buy their first house, start a family, travel around the world and doing adult things. I am starting to realize the opposite about being weak and embarrassed though. The universe placed me here. Everything crumble quickly in my life and I had to make a decision. I lost my job, friends began dying, the undergraduate college that I went to closed up, and my old college roommate passed. The more I tried to hold onto to my life in Vermont, the universe seemed to have another plan. I kept getting messages that I needed to return home. Again, I fought the idea and looked for every excuse not to move back, but something kept whispering in my ear. I finally decided to throw my hands up and surrender to the process. It feels right. This is the next phase of my personal growth process. It is simply just a stepping stone in the right direction.
3. I have Grown: Coming back home definitely has taught me one important lesson -- I’ve grown so much. It is interesting to walk around your home town and see old familiar faces. It is a great feeling, but also weird at the same time. It makes me realize that I am not the same person I used to be. That old person who grew up in town and was friends with all of those familiar faces is no longer alive or present. Well, maybe that old person is alive, but just not present as much as he used to be. I have grown in so many ways, personally, professionally, and spiritually. It makes me feel humbled about my journey in life.
4. Saturn Returns and Stepping into my Role: For those of you who are not familiar with the Saturn Return, you can do a quick Google search for more details. The first big Saturn return happens roughly around the ages of 28-30. This means that Saturn is returning to its original place in the sky around the time of your birth. The significance of the Saturn Return is all about growing up and trimming away those parts of your life that do not serve you anymore. It the phase in your life that you should be doing your “pruning” so that you are able to grow and transition into the next stage of your life. Ironically, my Saturn is in the 4th house (the house of family and relationships), and it is ironic that I would return to my family during this transit. More synchronistic is that I moved in with Saturn (my father – Saturn is representative of the father figure archetypically, and represents authority). Since coming home, I have been developing a new relationship with my family and I always find some of the conversations to be ironic and synchronistic. I am starting to have conversations about healing, spirituality, and metaphysics with people I would never expect to be interested in these topics. How cool! I feel as if the universe has called me back here for a reason – to step into my role a little bit more and begin to share my skill set and knowledge with those who I grew up with.
Sometimes we need to come home. Sometimes we need to come back to the place where our roots run deep to understand how far we have really traveled on this sacred journey called Life.
This is not all I have learned, but this is just a start. This is just the start to my new journey, and I am excited to see where it takes me.
Thanks for reading. Leave a comment or let me know what you think! Many Blessings!
