“Some things never change,” I say, wearily, in response to her complaint about the Superintendent. She had the same complaints about him when I was in high school.

“Very true,” she said. “And sometimes, that can be oddly comforting.’

I meant to protest, but bit my tongue, and then realize she is right.

Like the fact that I can even have this conversation with her. She is still nearly 20 years my senior, but she has never spoken to me as anything but an equal.

I tell her about my temp job, how I hope they hire my permanently, but how that will mean I am in Jersey indefinitely. I don’t say “stuck in Jersey,” but part of me will feel that way.

“I know the feeling,” she says.
“I never thought I’d be 25, back with my parents, and without A Plan.”
“I know that feeling too.”

I am preaching to the choir here. She knows., because she has been there.

The thing that hasn’t changed, is that I am safe here, I can say anything without fear of judgement. Over the years, she has heard it all from me anyway.

The next night, I am surprised to see a missed call from Joe. I call him back; and twenty minutes later, he picks me up and we go for coffee. The only thing that has changed is that I am in the passenger seat. He tells me he’s just come from the diner, the one we frequented in high school. The old owners sold it not too long ago, and the new ones have changed its name and completely redecorated. Gone are the salmon pink chairs I sat in so many summer nights. Gone are the cheesy paintings by local “artists.” “The food is better,” he says.

“I still disapprove of it,” I say.

On the way home, I get a text message, and make a sound of annoyance. “This guy will not leave me alone.” He doesn’t ask, but I tell him the story anyway.

The details are always different, but he is probably thinking that some things never change.

These are the people I have come home to. They value the pieces of me that I like best. Recently, I was thinking about this bad habit I have, when I meet new people, I get frustrated with my inability to just let them get to know me. I have this compulsion to delve into details, stories of my past, probably motivated by a fear of people not really getting me. Here, at home, they already know the back story. They don’t need to read the archives. They are the ones, I suspect, who know me better than anyone ever will again. In some ways, this bothers me I picture Joe and I, riding the 8:03 bus into Port Authority ten years from now, with the same stories. I hear myself complaining to her in ten years that I’m still in Jersey and without a Plan.

In other ways, it comforts me. It has never been said before, but I know these are the people that will always care about me, no matter what, even though it is long after I thought the expiration date on these friendships had passed. Even though there were years when we barely talked, or didn’t talk at all, the comfort in conversation is always there. There is still a sense that we are looking out for each other, even if it has been from a distance.

However reluctantly, this, this town in New Jersey is home. But fortunately, so are they.

Doesn’t matte where you are

Doesn’t matter where you go

If it’s a million miles away

Or just a mile up the road

Take it in; take it with you when you go

Who says you can’t go home?

There’s only one place

They call you one of their own