So six years ago I went on a trip to the USA to meet and visit a friend who is the longest running relationship I have. And also the best.

Shit went down. Long story short I missed my flight back to England, so I ended up staying a few extra months.

No big deal really… I mean when we informed ICE and I had finally stopped calling the current situation a problem for.. Da Da Da Daaaa… Future Becca! ICE asked us..

Is she a terrorist? Not really

Does she have plans to endanger the life of the President? Uh.. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

Is she likely to knock over a liquor store? Uhm.. Not this week.

Okay.. Well then she isn’t a deportation priority…

Uhm.. Okay then, I guess I will just stay? As an illegal alien no less…

Anyway long story short, I did eventually get home, but due to circumstances with my family at the time I vowed not to go back to my home town. I had been such a disrespectful ass trash to my entire family. But mostly my parents. And I just couldn’t face them. So I was taken in by a friend who lived over 200 miles away and they offered me the couch to sleep on until I found a job.

Five years later I am still in that town (Off their couch though) and I am in the same job I landed.

But things are different now. Because while I have been living so far away from home my Nanny died. Quite unexpectedly. I didn’t attend her funeral. It would have meant travelling up north and facing everyone again for the first time in 3 years. Plus the nature of my Nanny’s illness leading up to her death meant that I had already grieved her loss a long time ago. She had lived and suffered with Alzheimer’s for years and toward the end. She was nothing more than the Nanny shaped shell that once was.

I wasn’t ready for that and I still hadn’t forgiven myself for the terrible actions I had repeated over and over since the age of 10 or so. (Yes I was really that bad a daughter)

So while I had been living in self exile for 3 years. I was still in contact with my mum. Which took me a long time to actually get in contact with her fully. For a long time I wouldn’t give her my phone number or address. She could only find me on Facebook.

So after the funeral she informed me that my dad had said to her, that life is short and it was time to forgive and move on. And that I was welcome to go visit and stay in their house. Words cannot express what that meant. My dad is quite a black or white person. There is no middle or fifty shades of grey. But losing his mother, my Nanny made him realise.

Then when it came to the reading of the will, it turned out that my Nanny had left me and my sisters a grand each. Which my dad bumped up to £4000.00…

When my mum told me what he was planning to do. I turned it down. And I told him, thank you, but no thank you. I do not deserve the extra 3000.00 after my behaviour and my blatant disrespect. My dad said no, you will take it, it’s a gift, and unbeknown to me…

That is what changed everything…

My sisters came around and were willing to see me, my dad was also willing to have regular contact albeit in his own way… He is just as socially awkward as I am.. It’s probably where I get it from.

So I embarked on my first trip home in 3 years. And I had realised something because in those three years I had lived away I had grown up, I had been diagnosed and things started to make sense to me. And most importantly after seeing my family again I had forgiven myself.

And now, 2 years on, I am involved in the lives of the 1 niece and 4 nephews that have accumulated. Which I am so thankful for. I love them more than words can say… I see 2 of them more than the other 3 but that is fine because I have more of a relationship with them than I ever did before.

When I went to the US. The eldest was 2 and the youngest was 4 months. He had just come out of hospital after a lengthy stay due to his premature birth.

So now, as I have just spent the last week and a half here, at my parents house and I am gearing up to go back down south, where I have now made my home… I start to wonder, and I have noticed this the last 2 times at least when I am preparing to leave…

“Do I want to?”

“What do I have down south?”

A job… Which are admittedly hard to come by. I have friends… Okay, I can count them on one hand but they are there. I have a life … Of sorts… I don’t get out much and I don’t really go much further than from my bed to work and maybe to a shop in between but then I wouldn’t be any different if  I lived back up north either.

Then the real kicker… Why do I still refer to the town my parents live in as “home” When I haven’t lived here in 5 years, and I have no immediate plans to return. I start to feel the heart strings tug when I have to leave. It could be a bi-polar reaction. I have had 10-12 days of non stop communication and “doing” things. And then I return back “home” to… Well… Nothing… I have roots here and I have family that are growing up so fast. Blink and you miss it.

I suppose once I do get “home” things may possibly be different this time as I have just reconnected to Morgue, and so the imptiness may seem a little less impty perhaps…