Home

Home is an interesting idea. I have lived here in Washington DC for 33 of the last 36 years. Before that, I lived in rural PA for 19 years, and in WV for two years. In the middle of my tenure here, I lived in Pittsburgh for three years, to attend grad school at Pitt.

Honestly, of all of these times, the time in Pittsburgh was absolutely the most formative. It led to the most important changes in my life, and forever altered who I perceived myself to be. I met the most critical people of my life up until that time there, and most of those people are still among the most important people in my life today. I think that I would have been very happy there had I stayed.

But I didn’t stay, for reasons, and I have now lived here, in DC or its environs, for 57% of my entire life and 83% of my adult life. It’s actually difficult to remember—apart from that three-year fever dream that was Pittsburgh—ever really living anywhere else.

And yet, if you asked me where I think of when you say “home”, well, home is still that house in Pennsylvania that strangers live in now, the one my parents sold without even telling me in 2012, the one that was always supposed to be mine. Sometimes, I go and look at it on Google Maps, even though that feels a little stalkery. But it’s like checking on an old friend. I want to make sure that it’s OK.

But none of that is really all that relevant to why I am thinking about the meaning of home today. As Trump continues to announce his cabinet picks, the odds that this will get Very Bad™️ are increasing. I’d say we are at 60-40 now, with the only saving grace being his staggering combination of ineptitude, laziness and greed. He wants to punish his enemies, yes, but he also wants to make some bank and golf all the time (and be adored by a woman he’s hired to basically walk behind him and adore him. I am not making that up.) So, it’s possible that he gets nothing done, and I sit in this house in the DC suburbs for four years holding my breath, and then he goes away for good.

I’m not holding out MUCH hope that it goes that way, but it’s still possible.

On the more likely chance that it goes the other way, I will be faced with a choice: do I hunker down here, and try to not draw too much attention to myself, and just get through the four years in quiet existential pain, or do I go somewhere else, where I can grieve my country more openly and have a chance at a different kind of life?

I’ve been looking at Costa Rica.

I started taking Spanish classes after Uncle Joe’s disasterous debate, when a second Trump presidency started to take hold in my brain. Kevin can probably work from anywhere (there are folks currently on his team working from Europe), and I’m given to understand that there are pretty easy ways to get permanent residency status there. It’s beautiful, and less expensive than here. And, really, as a hard introvert, all I need are my jammies, my iPad, my Kindle and some fast Internet.

My parents are in Virginia, and I know they would miss me desperately, but we video call now quite frequently, and I would imagine that I could fly home for the holidays. FL is insisting that I take the cats, so I’d have them with me, although finding a doctor who can properly treat Callie might be tricky.

But FL would stay here. Her dad’s health, while not usually bad, is always precarious, and she just doesn’t want to be a five-hour plane ride away. And it’s been a minute since I had to live without her, and that is pretty fucking daunting, if I am being honest.

I’m not alone in any of this. My friend Jen visited a few weeks ago and the literal first thing she said to me was “how will we know when it’s time to leave?” And I wish I had known how to answer that question.

I wish I knew how to answer it now.

But the point of this is, if I do this, if I leave everything behind except for my husband and my cats and my jammies and my iPad and my Kindle and I move *to another country*, well…will it ever feel like home? Will it feel like a fresh start somewhere else, or will it feel like I felt living in the Residence Inn for six months when my house flooded? Comfy and warm and dry, but ultimately a waypoint?

And I am not sure what the entire point of this is, except that it’s rattling around in my head and sometimes when things keep banging on the walls you just need to let them out, let them form themselves into actual words and phrases and sentences and see where they go.

I don’t think I want to move to Costa Rica. I am afraid I am going to have to move to Costa Rica. Or, you know, somewhere.

I’m scared here. How’s that, Juliana? Is fear a primary emotion?