From home to home, and back again

In a year full of firsts, I've just experienced yet another one: My First Trip Home. And one of the biggest things I've realized as a result of this trip is that home is a more fluid and dynamic concept than it used to be. On my flight back to the States, I met a German woman who said she was happy to be done with a stressful trip. "Are you heading home?" I asked her. She paused, then said, "From home to home." 

Hers is a phrase I've never had occasion to use before, until now. Having grown up in the same town my entire life, then venturing a whole 10 miles down the road to college, my sense of home is deeply rooted in one geographic spot. Sure, there was the junior year that I spent making a life for myself in Oxford's nooks and crannies, a year that stands out as one of my favorites. Yet as much as I loved it there, I always knew I was coming back to California, and I never made the mistake of referring to Oxford as "home."

But now, things feel a bit more complicated. Of course California will always feel like home: as I approach the green-turning-yellow light near TJ's, I realize I still know exactly how far away I can be and still make it through the intersection (perhaps with a slight tap of the accelerator). Going to the library with my dad, I marveled at the fact that I've been going to the same public library my entire life. (And yes, that guy in the bronze statue out front is still on the SAME page of his book. As a kid, I'd try to calculate how many words he could read a day and still stay on that page for one month, one year, one decade.) And of course, there are friends and family and kitties, so many loved ones in one place that I left wanting so much more time to soak it all in. Coming home on vacation is a challenge I encountered for the first time, and the stress of it caught me off guard: how to see everyone and every place I love in one short trip? (Short answer: you can't.)

Yet the world I return to is the land of many other important firsts: our first home as a married couple, our first time starting a business, our first pair of sibling kittens. It's still a foreign land, one that challenges me and scares me and annoys me and surprises me more than my first home. Nonetheless, it's the land where Doug and I have chosen to create our life together, and because of that, it too has become my home. 

And so, in my journey from home to home and back again, I am reminded of how thankful I am for all you precious, amazing people whom I am so blessed to know. As hard as it was to come home knowing I'd have to leave again so soon, getting a face-to-face dose of your love and support made it possible for me to come back and keep on living and growing here in this crazy new home of ours. If you take away just one thought from this post, I hope it's this: PLEASE GET SKYPE and email me your Skype name so we can video chat. I'm telling you, it is infinitely more satisfying than email. And I can guarantee you glimpses of some seriously cute African kittens! 

Delighting in the rainbow cornucopia of my latest trip to the fruit & veggie stands, while Eve looks on