Transitioning Home

It's so strange being home knowing that it's not really coming home -- it's a transition away from home...to a new home...even though this will still be home. (If I were Jack Sparrow, I would follow that up with a "Savvy?" because that was just as confusing as half of the things he says.)

[Oh, sidenote. I stand corrected on my last post. I was not 4 when my grandparents moved to Richmond. I was 5 or 6. There. Happy, Dad? "You see sir, I'm doing this for you." ;)]

Don't misinterpret what I'm saying. I love, love, love being here. It's just different this time.

As I sit in my bedroom, my own corner of the world, here in this wonderful home with my family all within an hour of this very spot, I am comfortable. I am happy. And I'm anxious to soak it all in, every last second because I know that soon my corner of the world will

e x p a n d

beyond a bedroom and morph into an apartment, a whole apartment, all my own. And I will be 8 hours from this wonderful home, from my family. And at first I will not be comfortable and I will not always be happy. I will be anxious to soak that all in, too, but I will also be anxious for the comfort and happiness to come along, for it to feel like home there, too.

And it will...it will just take time. That happens with moving anywhere. I felt it with every single dorm room and the house in Texas. In the end it was just as hard to leave as it was to originally fathom that it would feel comforting. I know that when the time comes to move out of that apartment, I'll shed some tears and some smiles as I pack up and think of all the growing up I'll do within those walls, just like I'll be doing as I pack up to move there.

Yeah, life is happening fast. I really and truly believe there could have been no better time for this blogging challenge than here and now. :)

~"You leave home and move on and you do the best you can." ["The House That Built Me" - Miranda Lambert]~

Home Again

4 airports in 2 days. 3 different flights. Lessons of trust, patience, kindness tucked away within those moments, the ones that reminded me of my adulthood, of knowledge and confidence I've gained -- even though I can't pinpoint where it came from. I can only conclude that I've picked up bits of both along the way. And I had people reminding me of it, too.

Now I'm searching for words to capture this magic that's these emotions that come with returning to a place that I once knew as a temporary home away from home, passing my familiar landmarks along the way that have become friends along the freeway, seeing what will now be my home away from my home town, which will still be a sanctuary to me, a heart-lifting, rejuvenating place, but of a different kind -- the kind that I will go to for visits, that I will relish every moment in, but that I will be glad to leave for my very own sanctuary that I've put together my own way. A place that will be no less special, but that will have to share some of my sense of "home" with another.

The Midwest grew more beautiful while I was gone.

The moment I could see the North Platte again, I knew that I would always, always be a Midwest girl at heart who would always feel her heart swell with love again at being reunited with this home.

~"Where we love is home,/Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts." [-Homesick in Heaven by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.]~