Going Home Again

About a year and a half ago, I moved from Cincinnati proper back to the not-so-booming metropolis of Norwood, Ohio - my hometown. It's been kind of a weird transition.

Since as far as I can remember, Norwood has always been looked upon as more than a bit on the white trash side of the fence. It was a working-class city (the local GM factory manufactured Camaros and Firebirds), and the residents were predominately Caucasian. My mother has, on more than one occasion, told the story of her friend's discomfort (understatement) when her young son, upon seeing his first African-American person, walked up to the woman and tried to rub the strange color off of the woman. Unthinkable in this day and age, but a naïve reaction to something new by a toddler growing up here.

Despite the fact that I was not an outspoken Myo in high school, I was a pretty radically thinking person. A few of my friends were dealing with sexual identity issues, and despite my inability to actually put a label on what exactly my friends were going through, I started to form a non-judgmental view of the world around me. Religion? Didn't really matter. Color of your skin? Whatever. Who you wanted to make out with? Have fun.

There was one unwritten rule, one unspoken bigotry, though. Get out of Norwood.

After 26 years, I managed to do this. I moved into a house with relatively flaky roommates in Madisonville, a few blocks from a pretty shady neighborhood. My parents were more than a bit freaked. (C'mon, MyoMom. Admit it. You know you were.)

At least I got out of Norwood, I thought.

A year later, the leaseholder of the house fell in love and moved into a trailer with her boyfriend. (And ran off with my security deposit, I might add.) I moved in with a friend who insisted on living a few blocks away from her parents. She hadn't quite cut the apron strings, but wanted to feel like she did. After a year of living away from my family, I was mildly irritated by the fact that I tried my best to be a good roommate, but came home many nights to dishes that I didn't dirty that had been sitting for days and a chain-smoking sweatpants-wearing person camped out on the couch who didn't see why she should have to scrape the two-day-old fettuccini out of the saucepan.

After a year and a half, I was told I needed to move. I was not on the lease (as my credit sucked like a black hole), so I was the one who needed to find a new place to live. Understandable, but still a major moment of panic. I had a month to find a place to live, and I had to shop for Christmas presents while I was looking. Wasn't the holiday season stressful enough?

My mother immediately jumped in to help, looking for apartments in my price range in the Norwood/Oakley area. Unfortunately, my price range could barely afford me a basement apartment (with tile floors!) on a dead end street in Oakley... if my credit rating passed the muster. I politely smiled at the leasing agent and told her I'd think about it.

I didn't even look at the places in Norwood. There was no way in hell, I told myself, that I would ever move back. (I did drive past the places, though, and in my defense, they were all pretty much nasty complexes in the more rundown sections of town. The GM plant had closed in 1987, and the city had suffered in the wake of the massive layoffs and unemployment.)

I eventually found a place in Clifton Heights, where all of my friends had lived during my college years. Unfortunately, by the time I moved to Clifton, everyone I knew had moved elsewhere. (Except for Mike Dangers, who just recently bought a house after living in the same apartment in Clifton for over ten years. Congrats, man!) It didn't matter; I had a reasonably-sized apartment with off-street parking in a liberal complex. The majority of the residents were gay or minority grad students. My resident managers had been featured in an article about same-sex unions in the local paper. I was a part-time bartender at the hot alternative bar. It was a good fit.

And thank goodness, it wasn't Norwood.

Nine years later, my happily eclectic complex had started to show some signs of wear. My rent had gone up almost $100 in that time. The managers felt the need to install locks on our laundry rooms. My storage space was broken into. After 9/11, I received a notice on my door that any racial slurs were greatly frowned upon. Apparently newer residents had taken it upon themselves to make comments about some of our minority residents. There were also several postings about apartment and vehicle break-ins. I had suffered a vehicle break-in myself (on Christmas Day, no less), and when the second one in my parking lot occurred, I'd decided I'd had enough of the college bohemian life. In a panic, I called my mother (who happened to be working at the Zoo at the same time I was).

A few hours later, she asked me how I felt about moving back to Norwood. I pondered it for a second, and asked where exactly in Norwood she was proposing.

Turns out the apartment in question was in a four-family near the older (i.e., big huge houses) part of town. It was centrally located, was a reasonably good size, was reasonably priced, and had a garage. My potential landlady had two children that were Zoo employees.

I started packing.

A year and a half later, I'm quite content here. My neighbors are quirky (it's a family building; I'm the only non-relative), the teenaged son across the hall has some definite anger issues. I'm a little irritated by the fact that my neighbors all have dogs and don't clean up after them. (No backyard barbeques here; I respect my friends and their shoes.)

I've tried to keep my moving back into town a hush-hush thing. I'm not sure why. Did I think that moving back to Norwood meant failure, that I couldn't hack it in "the big city" and I slunk back into town, with my tail between my legs?

My cover (if I even really had one), was blown a few weeks ago. My parents had picked me up after work for dinner, and we were rear-ended right in front of the mall in the center of town. While my father tried to reason with the other driver, my mother dialed 911, resulting in a police car, a fire truck, and an ambulance parading down Montgomery Road.

The first paramedic got off the truck, and my mother immediately recognized him by a family resemblance to some old friends. I was surprised, mostly because I'd expected the connection in the "Six Degrees of Norwood" game to come from the police car.

It was at this point the second paramedic approached my side of the SUV. "Miss Myo?"

I stared blankly at the paramedic. I'd not given any information to anyone yet, and it was a bit presumptuous to assume I was related to the people in the car. (Although I do look a lot like MyoMom.) "Umm, yeah?"

"Myo? Went to Norwood High School?"

"Umm. Yeah?"

"It's Joe. Joe High School. I went to school with you."

Oh. Duh. I hung out with Joe High School the summer after I left Miami, before he went away to the Army (I think? some armed forces division). "Good god man! How've you been?"

As he checked me for accident-related injuries, we caught up a little and my head tried to fill in physical blanks. He got married last year; somewhere down the line his tall wiry framed had filled out, he'd lost the braces as well as the unruly curly hair with the blonde highlights. I wondered what his head was registering. Huh. She's gained a bit of weight. Her hair is long again. She's dying her hair - but not for a few months. Nice tattoo - didn't expect that. And did she say she lived a few blocks from here?

My cover was blown.

I suppose I'm a little (OK, a lot) freaked out about my upcoming 20th year high school reunion. (20 years? Yikes!) Granted, I've been through a lot since I left high school. I worry that a lot of it will be considered disappointment. "You know, she never finished college. She never got married. And she moved back to Norwood. Scandal!"

I'd like to believe that I won't be faced with those judgments if I step through the doors of the local hotel conference room next year. (And I say "if" because I've not yet decided if I should go.) I know that those judgments are only labels I've placed upon myself. In most probability, my former classmates will remember me as the quiet studious girl, and won't speculate any further upon my life after receiving my diploma.

It still scares me, though.

All of this weirdness is happening around me, and I can only worry if I'll be the only unmarried geek with no secondary education, who never did anything with her life at the reunion. How ridiculous. How self-centered. Why am I so insecure about being in the same room with a bunch of people I've not seen in two decades? What right do these people have to pass any sort of judgment upon my life, and why am I so convinced that they will?

I know I’m being ridiculous. I know there’s no set measurement for success or failure. There are many places in my past where I can point out moments where I felt like I was on the right path, but more often than not I have a hard time finding those places.

And it's then that I realize that, despite my attempts at avoiding any type of bigotry, I do have an intolerance. I have a prejudice. I've been brainwashed into what I should have been. I'm not sure where that expectation came from, but the prejudice is strong.

It has nothing to do with moving back to Norwood. I'm Myo-intolerant.

I expected more from her (or was convinced that I should expect more from her), and I'm terrified that other people might see the image that I see when I look in the mirror. All of the blemishes, all of the imperfections. My past is something indisguisable and scarring, and no matter how hard I try, it won’t rub off.

Back when I lived in Clifton, it was easy to avoid looking in the mirror. I only had one, on the sliding doors of the medicine cabinet above my bathroom sink. Here, I have a full length (but only half width… it came with the apartment) mirror on the bathroom door, partially obscured by an oversized blue robe. I have to face myself a lot more often here, have to see myself as I actually am. I find it’s sometimes hard to look myself in the eye.

I'm working on it, but sometimes I really hate that mirror.