Homesick

May Journal Project                Day 27

"Headed East"                   MJP Day 27

 I read the words in my 2007 journal and the majority of them are about going home.   Homesickness is a painful malady.  I'm sure everyone's felt it at sometime in their lives. It's not always a longing for a childhood home.  Sometimes it's just the desire to be around the familiar sights, sounds, smells and tastes.  I've moved many, many times and remember bits and pieces about each place.  My life started in Washington, DC and during my childhood we lived in Shaker Heights, Ohio before we settled in Virginia.  We lived in Roanoke during my junior high years and moved to Richmond when I was in high school.  My parents still live in the same house and when I go home I stay in my old room.  It's had several occupants over the years and is now a guest room.  Yet whenever I sleep there I still feel like a kid coming home.

As an adult I moved around a bit too.  I lived several places in Richmond then moved to Maryland in my mid twenties.  Both of my children were born there and we had a beautiful little house in Columbia. Then we were transferred and ended up back in Virginia, this time in Fredericksburg.  I'd already spent 4 years there when I was in college, never thinking I'd ever want to live there. Yet it's the place I now call my home.  When I was going through my divorce in 2003 I decided to buy a little cape cod house on a quiet street in the city.  From the moment I moved in I felt I was home. When my children left for college it was time for me to move again, although it's a temporary arrangement.  I got married again and agreed to live in Houston part time as long as I didn't have to sell my precious house.  I've always been lucky to find caretakers to stay there and whenever I get a chance I go home.  Because that's where I want to be.

One more year and we'll be going home, this time for good.

"Our house is a very, very fine house. . . ."                             ~C,S, N & Y