how often do you go 'home'

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I'm sitting in my parents house back in Bradford. its only the second time i've been back this year i think. I suppose it depends how long its been since you left home (i've only been in london for 2 and a half years), but how often do you go back?

i've only been here a day, and i want to get back to London. although i was happy here and could easily have just moved over to Leeds, i'm so glad i didn't. theres nothing here for me. some people knew i was going to back and have been calling saying hey lets go out in Leeds tonight, but i don't really want to. Leeds just seems grim and boring now. I want to be back in London as soon as possible.

this is a good sign, it shows how much London really is home now.

the qs:
how often do you go back?
do you like going back?
do you still know lots of people from there?

― gareth, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Does being in college count? I go back (an hour back) once a month or so, mainly because of a certain girl. However, going back is urban-to- suburban migration, which is a minus in my book and I don't know and don't desire to know people from my "home". Also, the music stores suck there.

― Honda, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The last time I was home was 1993. Am I bragging or complaining? I honestly don't know.

― dave q, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i am abck , having an early xmas, having dealth with my demons, ready to come back here in a yr, leave sydney behind for the rural art- queer life

― geoff, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hi All, I guess I am the most fortunate here! My Mom lives with me fulltime( As she can't live alone anymore.) I take care of her and I'm trying to make our time as happy as possible. She's a joy to be around,and we have many great times! I hope you have great parents too. Gale

― Gale Deslongchamps, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

my sisters back north and i want to go home , maybe for christmas

― anthony, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I go maybe once a year, depending on all manner of things. I tend to go home in November before it gets very cold and I freeze to Minneapolis sidewalks. But not this year. They will be coming here before March.

― suzy, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Twice a year, in early summer and Xmas. It's a good way to get away from the Net (enforced breaks are useful) and to allow yerself to be pampered a bit. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I go home every day. That kind of makes it lose its charm.

― Ronan, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My parents live within calling-in distance of me here in LEeds (our reporter on the scene says: no grimmer than anywhere else; probably boring from a metropolitan perspective). This has the disadvantage of carrying a higher loading of everyday family responsibility (a crisis example of this 4 yrs ago is a small part of why I came back), and causing people to think you're unable to break away. The advantage is that I never have to be exposed to them for long periods (or be exposed primarily in their house), and it's easy to have a grown up and reciprocally supportive relationship with them (esp my mum). Not that that's necessarily difficult if you live a long way away, but some of my friends still have atrociously adolescent relationships with their parents, because 'going home' (without the being around parents normally in between) seems to mean going back to being fifteen. I'm digging myself a hole here, because I sound like I'm saying only proximity enables a decent relationship with your parents - I'm really just saying that I'm pleased and surprised how much I like mine, and a lot of that has to do with short doses and local parity.

So, when did I last go 'home'? Thursday night to feed the cats when they were away, and before that Sunday to drop in some bulbs for my mum and nick my dad's Laura Cantrell CD.

― Ellie, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hmmmm...I am at home, coz I have no money to afford to move anywhere. I will always live in London. Everyone I know is here. I think my parents may move out of London in the next few years, it'll be cool to visit them.

― james, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ellie, which part of Leeds you live in?

this time there is the realisation that my parents house really is a 'childless' house now, especially now my sister has moved to New Jersey. there are piles of...'things' and it looks all 'storagey' in my room. i wonder if this is the beginning of the eventual pensionerization of their house.

― gareth, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I go 'home' - well, to my Mum's new house now - roughly once a fortnight. Sundays. And I have my fortnightly meal with GRAVY! Omf! Chobble!

― DavidM, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

my folks live in Oamaru, which is a pokey little retirement village / bogan swamp 100km north of dunedin. i don't go back very often despite the proximity - say 3 or 4 times a year. i mostly go home to see my little brother, he's 12 years old and just a wee sweetie. my parents are a drag. all they do is fight, they don't even like each other. the longest i can last being in that situation is three days.

don't know many people from there anymore, i keep in touch with my high school best friend, Philippa. menelaus is also from oamaru but we only met in dunedin this year.

― di, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's not that much of a home to go back to anymore - the mother's moved and is rarely there anyway - a few times I've popped back without making concrete plans I've found out she's changed her arrangements and is going to be in Wales or something for the time I was going to be around.

I went home once in early summer, but only really for somewhere to crash out near some good roads. Generally it seems to be for christmas and that's it.

― ogden, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh, and for the other bits, it's pretty dull but she does a mean roast. Since she now lives somewhere I never have (and have never spent more than a week there at a time, and then only because I was unable to walk so I was trapped in the house) I don't know anyone else there.

― ogden, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Every 2 months or so. Most my close friends are back in St. Lou. And my dog. Now I am all sad.

― bnw, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Only a few times a year, even though they live just two hours away. I'm a terrible daughter.

― Kim, Saturday, 1 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, I only live 30 miles north, so I go 'home' at least once a month. I live in the city while they live in the industrial zone south of the lake. I'm toying with the idea of moving back, though, since my dad lost his job and my parents are getting old and need some help paying the property taxes on the house. I'm apprehensive about it because it's such a lifestyle change - no hopping on the 'L' late at night. Also, I've spent my whole life trying to get out of there. Where I come from, there are those who stay and those who move into the city, but people don't go very far in either case.

My sister just moved up here after living at home for a while - she has a new lake view apartment that's way cooler than mine, that b*tch. I walked her pit bull this morning as the sun was coming up over the lake.

― Kerry, Sunday, 2 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I live only 3 miles from my parents, who are fantastic, so I see them once a fortnight at least. It's a real pleasure,and although I live so close, I'm going to move bacvk in for a whole 3 or 4 days over Xmas, and I can't wait. I even bought pastry (cheating, I know) and mincemeat for mince pies yesterday! Forgot the icing sugar, but hey.

Last night I had a long and convoluted dream, one aspect of which was my father worrying that his boyfriend wouldnt' be able to find out where he was. WTF?

― Mark C at easyeverything, Sunday, 2 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Every day. Strange? No. I work for my parents. As I also live across the street from their home/workplace, I even go there when it's my day off. Do I like going there? Yes, very much so. I love my parents (and my work). I love my neighbourhood. I know too many people there (and in my city).

― helen fordsdale, Sunday, 2 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Still live at home. Can't imagine moving in the foreseeable future. Don't much want to either.

― Robin Carmody, Sunday, 2 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I am at my Dad's. I was drunk and bored last night so I didn't sleep. Now it's 8 in the morning and my muscles are aching.

It's cramped here: two of my friends are staying, and my room measures about 2 metres by 3 metres. Yesterday I was playing a tune on a casio and my Dad heard me from the hallway and started shouting 'Listen to that! The musician!'

I am borrowing my Mum's BMW. She's embarrassed round me at the moment. Though my Mum's been with a woman for 3 years we've never talked about it, but for her birthday I gave her a book about Patricia Highsmith, accompanied by a short biography that mentioned her being a lesbian.

― maryann, Sunday, 2 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Every couple of months - always at Christmas, always around my Mum's birthday, always around my Dad's, always around mine, and then a couple of other times. I never really feel 'at home' in the old sense though it's wonderful to see them (and scavenge a couple of books!).

Oddly maybe the nostalgia I feel isn't for growing up there (and it's been the family home when I was 4) but for the times I was staying there as an adult - a few months after University, then a year-and-a- bit when I was ill in '97-'98. I think it's the loss of responsibility at a time I did have it I kind of miss, even though those times were far from the happiest of my life and I'd hate to have to move back.

― Tom, Sunday, 2 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i go back to long island about once a month. i enjoy it—my boyfriend is from there as well so we drive out together—although i don't really know a lot of people there anymore.

― maura, Sunday, 2 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The last time I went home, my home was bombed. I'm never going home again now.

No, really, I used to try to get back about once a year. Now my mum has sold the house that I spent my teenage years in, it seems to weird to go back. I know very few people back there any more, but the friends I have hung onto are very good ones. Generally, if you'd stayed friends with someone through ten years of not living with them, that's a good sign that it's a good friendship. The others slipped out of touch years and years ago.

It's still odd, no matter what. A strange feeling of having belonged somewhere but not belonging there any more, then realising that even when you were young, you didn't belong there.

― kate, Sunday, 2 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Funnily enough, I've just come back from seeing the folks - a flying visit and something of a guilt-avoiding sop to them for once again not going home at Xmas (and, damn us to hell, Pam & I encourage our friends from shirking their seasonal duties by inviting them round to stay over the holiday too). Trudged around Liverpool with Mum, buying gift vouchers and footwear from the factory shop; talked football with Dad and then scooted out for a curry with an old college friend in New Brighton.

I struggle to come up with any fond memories of life in Wallasey (apart from early, cosy ones... lying in bed on a Saturday morning listening to the spin dryer's drone, the sun streaming into the front room of our old house in Old Barn Road, dust particles dancing above the beige sofa-bed), whether pre- or post-Uni, but I still made the trip home every 5-6 weeks when in my mid-20s. By the time I was a Londoner, it was every 2-3 months, and now it's twice a year. I could blame the disintegrating railways - and perhaps my Dad would settle for that excuse.

― Michael Jones, Sunday, 2 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I ran away from home when I was seventeen. My parents divorced long before that. There is no longer a house in my hometown that I lived in. I visit my various family members a couple of times a year. Yesterday i drove an hour to pay a surprise visit on my grandmother who's had hip surgery and eye surgery within a month of each other so she's quite bored and immobile. we sat and talked for a few hours. It was really nice.

― Samantha, Monday, 3 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

Not so often anymore.

I sometimes long to just take a career break/feign a nervous breakdown and return home for a year. I don't know what my parents would think about that.

Home.

)-:

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 10 March 2003 03:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I go home once a year for Christmas. Last year it was really fun - usually it is a bit painful.

― toraneko (toraneko), Monday, 10 March 2003 14:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I was just at my dad's this weekend. I got there every other month or maybe more. I visit my mom's... I dunno... at least once a month. They both live in the same state. I don't sleep over at my mom's though because she only lives 30 minutes away (I still see her lots more than that, just not at her house).

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Monday, 10 March 2003 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

i go to the home's of my parents quite often. My mum moves about a bit she's currently in London so I'm going to have lunch with her on sunday. I go to my dad's quite a lot too but between his travelling for work, his partner and my degree I haven't seen him so much since christmas, but I saw him last time I was in London and will this w/e as well.

In the main i get on well with both of them.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 10 March 2003 14:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I am livin at home now, and it is dud, totally... i think when i move out, i will need to take a big break from my parents for a while, maybe not see them for a year, and then, after that, i will try to see them every so often.

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Monday, 10 March 2003 14:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Relations with parents seem to improve on moving out.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 10 March 2003 14:39 (twenty-two years ago)

without going into too much detail, i have to say, unfortunately, that it will take a good bit of time.

― Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Monday, 10 March 2003 14:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't get on with my mother at all, and haven't gone 'home' in over two years. No hurry to change that.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 10 March 2003 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I haven't been home in three years and get sad every time I think about it. I'm going to change that this summer, though.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 10 March 2003 21:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Is home still MN?

We're trying to get there for labour day weekend.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 10 March 2003 21:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, home is still MN, and Labor Day weekend would be CLASSIC as there would be MAXIMUM STATE FAIR PARTYING POTENTIAL. mmmm fried cheese on a stick i love you...

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 10 March 2003 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

this is the plan

― Ed (dali), Monday, 10 March 2003 21:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I try not to go home. My mum lives with the kind of guy who asks you for an arm-wrestle. I find her pretty dull also. I paid a visit, two summers ago I think, when my grandfather died. I acted like a dick the whole time. Changing the words to the hymns at the funeral like some conformist nine-year-old. I had nothing against the guy, but I wanted to start an argument with my sister.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Monday, 10 March 2003 22:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I was just home this weekend to see my dad after his surgery -- recovering very well, he looks great! -- and it was good to be there, I hadn't been there at that time of year before. Lovely warm days with a cool breeze, Carmel Bay was beautiful. Talked with my parents about a few key things I wanted to keep in mind -- their finances, their medical coverage -- and came away assured that they were set six ways to Sunday, which was a good relief. So yay trips home. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:03 (twenty-two years ago)

My mother and father live approximately 10 minutes away. So I see them all the time.

― Chris V. (Chris V), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:07 (twenty-two years ago)

four years pass...

how often do you go back?
do you like going back?
do you still know lots of people from there?

― Bob Six, Tuesday, 19 June 2007 23:01 (eighteen years ago)

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