When Going Home Doesn’t Feel Like Home

When going home doesn’t feel like home

I’ve spent the past several days visiting my mother. She’s approaching 92. Fiercely independent. Sharp in many ways, and in others, understandably fading. Time has softened some parts of her and hardened others.

Coming home, though—if you can even call it that—does not feel like coming home. Not in the usual way. I didn’t grow up where she lives now. There are no childhood haunts, no lifelong friends nearby, no old roots to water. Just walls that feel too close together and air that feels a little thinner than it should.

What I notice most, though, is how quickly I lose myself here. Not in a dramatic way. But quietly, subtly, until I catch myself holding my breath. Speaking with careful edits. Tucking away parts of my life that might invite too many questions or a disapproving look.

It’s not malicious. It’s just… history. Patterns. Roles we slip back into without trying. She becomes the mother. I become the son who never quite does it right. And even now, decades later, I feel myself navigating a minefield of unspoken expectations and deeply etched habits. Being here requires something of me. And takes something from me too.

But here’s the thing. These experiences—the ones that feel stifling, the ones that make us feel like shadows of ourselves—they are also invitations. To notice. To breathe. To remember who we are, even when it’s inconvenient.

In quiet moments, behind the closed door of a bathroom or in the stillness of early morning, I remind myself: I am not a child anymore. I am not here to be approved of. I am not here to reenact an old story.

I am here to bear witness. With kindness. And boundaries. With presence. And breath.

And maybe that’s enough.

I share this not for sympathy, but for solidarity. If you’ve ever returned to a place—or a person—that made you forget who you are, you’re not alone. If you’ve ever stayed quiet to keep the peace, or hidden parts of yourself to avoid judgment, you’re not wrong. You’re navigating something old and sacred and complex.

And maybe, just maybe, the path home begins not with them changing, but with us remembering that we’ve changed. That we can return differently. Even if they never do.

Blessings and abundance, always,
Dr. Mark A. Arcuri
New York