A few years ago, I committed the cardinal sin of believing Thomas Wolfe was wrong. After nearly twenty years of exile in the South (where the air was thick with both humidity and reactionary politics) I decided to move back home to Michigan (where the humidity and politics weren't perfect but less extreme in equal measure). My intentions -- though noble -- were naturally and completely delusional.

I had constructed an elaborate fantasy in which I would simply slip back into my family's lives like a well-worn sweater, picking up exactly where I'd left off two decades earlier. Never mind that I'd departed as a frightened eighteen-year-old who had never written a check, and was returning as someone who had managed to acquire a marriage, multiple mortgages, and what could generously be called "life experience." The girl who left couldn't balance a checkbook; the woman who returned had a roth IRA. But somehow, I convinced myself that none of this mattered. My brother would still want to play Banjo-Kazooie with me on weekends. My parents would want holiday dinners. We'd all just resume.

What I got instead were closed doors and cold couches.

Don't misunderstand—everyone was happy I'd moved back. There were the appropriate expressions of joy, the requisite "we're so glad you're home" declarations. But happiness is not the same as accommodation. My parents visited my new place twice in the three years I've been back, compared to my several dozen. They didn't even have a guest room when I came to see them, as if my return was theoretical rather than actual. My brother and his fiancée, though genuinely kind, had constructed a life that ran on a rigid schedule of in-laws, friendships, dates, overtime, and LSAT prep. I became the person constantly suggesting get-togethers, game nights, and spontaneous dinner dates. I essentially auditioned for a role in their lives that had already been cast.

I got the occasional puzzle or poker game, but they felt like consolation prizes.

I was appallingly naive to assume my family would exist in stasis, waiting for my return like Sleeping Beauties in their glass boxes. Why would I ever consider that they'd hold everything for me, saving my seat on the public transit of their lives? They were people with ambitions and obligations, not supporting characters in my homecoming narrative. They wanted to move forward with life, not let it pass by around them while they waited for me to figure out where I belonged.

So here I am, grappling with the same question that drove me away in the first place: where do I fit in? Am I the main ingredient in my friends' and family's lives, or am I the garnish—decorative but ultimately optional?

Jesus Christ -- I'm cilantro, aren't I? 

I occupy a peculiar demographic niche. I'm too old to hang out with the young ones and most people my age have children, which means their free time exists in fifteen-minute increments between soccer practice and parent-teacher conferences (do parents still do those? I don't know what parents do, tbh). That leaves the sixty-plus crowd, with whom I share exactly two interests: napping and finding young people insufferable. Making friends as an adult is hard enough under normal circumstances; doing it while straddling these particular generational gaps is joining a conversation that's already moved on to the next topic.

But I treasure the friends I do have, even if mine are scattered across the country like dandelion seeds. Mine remember my birthday, and text me memes and old Vines (because we're Elder Millennials now), and they understand that friendship sometimes requires nothing more than just reaching out to say, "Hey." They're proof that connection doesn't require proximity, and that home isn't necessarily a place you return to but something you carry with you.

I just hope they never move on without me, too. Because the truth about going home is that it's not really about the place—it's about the people who make space for you in their lives. And sometimes, the people you thought matter most are the ones who were never there to begin with.