The Nomadic Life

Chapter 40

The Journey Home

Home is where the heart is.

We have all heard that saying a thousand times, tossed around like it is simple truth.But it took too many years to understand the true meaning behind those words. Forty years of wandering, bivouacking through life, setting up temporary flimsy tents, always on the ready to fold them away at a moment’s notice. To uproot my life, start over and once again reinvent myself. This has always been my destiny. A nomad in search of love, belonging, and a place that would finally whisper, “Stay.”

For a brief, precious stretch of time, I found that place. I found my home.And then, just as easily, it was pulled away.

For two years I have been back in San Diego. It is funny how cities can change when you are not paying attention. San Diego used to feel warm, alive, like a big ole bear hug. Now it feels like a stranger wearing a familiar face. But Dad said I could not come home. He was still angry. So, I stay, not because I want to, but because there is nowhere else left to go.

Survival has always been a strength of mine. It is the only inheritance my mother ever gave me. Life can toss me against the rocks again and again, and somehow, I always manage to crawl back to the surface, bruised but breathing. By example she taught me how to bend without breaking.

You know my story by now. You have walked through these pages with me. You know that it was my grandfather’s love which bridged the emotional distance between Dad and me. How Dad and David took me in and gave me the one thing I never believed I deserved: a family. They saved me, giving me the life I now live.

So, imagine what it feels like to be cast away by the very man who once gave me love, emotional stability, my life back and a home.Every day, the crack in my heart widens just a little more. I think of them constantly, Dad, David, Grandpa. Every night, before my eyes close, I whisper goodnight to my father like a child clinging to bedtime rituals that no longer have a happy heart in which to echo.

“Blood does not make family.”I have said that for years and lived by it. But I never imagined that knowing what family is would make losing it hurt this much. I had waited a lifetime to belong. And now that I finally did, it was torn from me like pages ripped from a cherished book, leaving only ragged edges behind.

I do not want to die here. Not anymore.

Seven years ago, I might have. Back then, San Diego cradled me. I had friends. A community. I felt seen. Loved, even. But those days are gone, like photos scattered across the floor and faded by time. Now, when I look around, I see a city that no longer recognizes me, and I ache for home. For David’s steady kindness, the way he offered advice like warm bread, nourishing, never force-fed. I even long for Dad’s complicated love, the kind that cloaks itself in control but is rooted in a desperate need to keep me safe.

I lie in bed at night, surrounded by walls that do not know my story, in a house that will never be home. To my housemates, I am nothing more than a rent check. And in the silence, I even miss Dad’s overbearing nature. The lectures. The unsolicited advice. All of it. Because beneath his control there was unconditional love. And now there is just the hollow space where that emotion used to live.

San Diego’s weather is beautiful, that cannot be questioned, but my skies are overcast. The sun may always shine here, but my heart lives in perpetual twilight. I live my life on autopilot, one day blending into the next. Paradise, when you find yourself alone, begins to rot around the edges.

Then, one night, it happens.The email.

It is from Dad. Or at least from his email account.

My stomach twists into knots. My heart races. Fear grips me with icy fingers, and I immediately shut the computer down like slamming a door on an unwanted ghost.

What could it be?Has something happened to Grandpa?Has something happened to David?Harley?Or the unthinkable. News I would never recover from, could it be David writing to tell me something’s happened to Dad?

As the computer shuts down the monitor goes black, but the unopened email burns in my mind. Tonight, sleep will not come. I lie here, haunted by the image of a blinking arrow frozen beside his name, my chest a thunderous drum. Hours crawl by.

At three in the morning, I surrender. Avoidance has never been bravery; it is merely a mechanism I have always used to postpone the inevitable. I stumble from bed yawning and stretching as the illuminated power button guides me towards the desk. Slowly I bend to boot up the computer.

There it is…waiting.

I click.

Four words appear. Simple. Unadorned.I miss my son.

For a man who is a walking thesaurus, whose life has been measured in carefully chosen phrases, those four words strike deeper than any elaborate apology could. He does not say, “I love you.” He does not need to. The words are there, tucked invisibly and neatly between the spaces. He does not say, “I was wrong,” but I hear it in the silence.

The ball is in my court now. Do I reach back, risk my heart again? After all, this is the same man who turned me away, who shut the door on me as if I were disposable. My heart still remembers that slam. Do I dare trust him not to do it again?

And yet… I love him. I have never stopped. He is, and always will be, my father. Distance has not changed that. Time can never erase it.

I recall a country song that says it better than I ever could.

I move the mouse which brings the screen back to life.

Clicking on the envelope icon, his email remains at the top in my inbox.

Hesitantly I open his message and hit reply.

 I type seven words.

Can I trust you with my heart?

The words remain for two days, hiding beneath the Windows logo that drifts across the screen saver. I cannot bring myself to click send. My mind replays the day I left Cincinnati. I feel the sting all over again, the disbelief that my father could let me go so easily, like I was an inconvenience instead of his son. And now… he misses me?

A spark of anger flares, brief but bright.But no. That is the way I used to handle such dilemmas, no more. That is why I find myself here today, neither of us were willing to bend. Someone must be the bigger man this time.

I hit Send. And the second I do, regret floods in. I am a writer; I should have said more. I should have found the perfect words. But maybe, just maybe, those seven are enough.

For now, I wait. Tomorrow, I will go down to Dietrich’s for coffee, tap out a few more chapters as I lose myself in Dreamweaver, my attempt at “The great American novel.” Writing has always kept me busy when my heart is too loud.

One day, I will finish it.

But not today.

Today, I will wonder if those seven fragile words I sent to Dad will be enough to heal these past two years of heartache and pain.