Homesick

When I was with my ex-boyfriend, he would always complain about how unpleasant it was to be around me when I was homesick for my family after I had spent time with them at Christmas or when they visited me here in Chicago.

Of course, he's a prick...

...not that he ever USES his prick, if you get to the... ahem... bottom of my innuendo...

...but it is true that I am always sad for a few days after I see my father or mother or brother.

A couple of years ago, I got a call to audition for one of those Christmastime Holiday plays where you do 486 performances during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day.

Woohoo! What a great gig! Yep, that's the smell of sarcasm.

When the casting director told me that there was a performance on Christmas Eve, I politely declined the audition, explaining to him that I always go home for Christmas - - always - - and since I had a conflict with Christmas performances, I should not audition.

And then this particular casting director went ahead and scheduled the audition for me anyway. The next day, he left me a voicemail message confirming my "audition appointment," and I morphed in Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in that "What the fuck does she have on her face?" kabuki makeup, "Did you polish the bathroom floor today?," "No Wire Hangers!" scene.

I called him up and once again told him I could not audition because I always go home for Christmas.

He said something like, "Well, can't you just NOT go home this Christmas? Just this once?"

Suddenly, I was at the beginning of MOMMIE DEAREST, so what I said next came out slightly like Faye Dunaway's line reading of "Helga, when you polish the floor you have to move the tree. I'm not mad at you, Helga, I'm mad at the dirt!"

"I don't know about you," I said, "but I actually LIKE my family. So no, I can't skip this Christmas with my mother and father and brother to do this little play!"

I might not have used the word "play." I might have used the word "skit." I'm not sure. It's all a blur.

It took me until I was nearly 30 to realize that people are more important than plays. And that we aren't promised tomorrow.

I don't want to skip Christmas with my family and miss all that time spent with people I love, just like I don't want my last words to be...

"No, thank you. No Triple Fudge Chocolate Cake for me. I'm fine drinking this wheat grass."

Every time I'm with my family, it makes me think about moving back home...

I know that's not an option for me - - even my father says that when I came out of the womb, he knew that I would not live my life in Tennessee.

..but every year I'm here is a year without my family. And I want to spend more than one major holiday a year with them.

I want to have drinks with my father at the Bakers Peters Jazz Club. I want to have Sunday dinner at mama's house, stuffing ourselves on her cream corn and green beans and pot roast. I want to be a part of their daily lives. A phone call is not enough.

I had a great time with mama while she was here in Chicago. If this picture of mama in front of one of the Elaine Place giraffes isn't "The Cutest Damn Picture Ever Taken in the Entire History of the Universe," then I don't know what is!

I miss her so much. Her health is declining and... well... as I said, we're not promised tomorrow.

She's slightly considering moving here, but the winters and the long walks everywhere would not suit her well.

So, until I decide to move back home, I will just have to be a little homesick after I see them.

At least nowadays, I don't have the prick complaining and telling to "get over it."