Homecoming

Coming home.

I wonder where the word homecoming comes from.  Is it because a new school year has begun and students re-gather at their most common place and celebrate the new year?  Because school isn’t “home.”  So why “homecoming”? 

Last night was homecoming at my job, plus it was an alumni celebration, so the homecoming was, perhaps, a coming home for students who went away to college or moved somewhere else.  But again, it’s not “home” they’re coming to – it’s school, a place they all actively tried to escape for four years.  And those who are still currently students complain about being in school all week, but they will actively dress up and spend money for clothes and flowers and dinner in order to come “home” to their school on the weekend. 

It makes me wonder about the import of a high school.  The ambivalence teenagers have about their schools is as interesting a question as any philosophical conundrum.  They hate it.  They love it.  They want to get away.  They want to come back.  They hate school work.  They love having learned something. 

Perhaps it’s true that you can only hate something or someone you love, otherwise you’re apathetic towards it.  Not caring is very different than hating.  Students say they don’t care, but they care very much.  They care when their time is wasted.   They care when they get the high score.  They care when people make fun of them.  They care when no one listens.  They care when they say something apropos and it’s noticed.  They care about the minutiae.

They pretend not to care … but they actually care very much.

Everyone wants a place to call home, even if that place has some painful memories.  The truth is that high school is a drag.  It’s boring and long and time-consuming and redundant.  But.  High school is also the nucleus of four years of life.  It is the alpha and omega, whether you want it to be or not.  You have to go (the state mandates it) and you have to pass (you will not get a job).  You have to try to fit in (you will have no friends) and you have to pander to the opposite sex (you will not get laid). 

I understand why I have never gone to a high school reunion.  It’s not because I hate those people I went to high school with or because I was an outcast in high school.  I always thought I blew off reunions because I didn’t care about those people.  To a large extent, I don’t care about those people, but for me it’s more like a statement about coming home.  I found a different home.  And sometimes, it’s not necessary to revisit the past.  Some people are very happy in the past – I am not one of them.  I am happier in the future.  I would LIKE to be happy in the present tense, but I haven’t figured that one out yet. 

One of these days, I will find the spot that is ground zero of home.  Until then, I will continue to try to become.  Home.