So there is an old saying "You can’t go home again". Well in some ways I suppose that is true. Xander and I just returned from a long over due trip to Northern Minnesota to visit family. We stayed at my childhood home. It is different to go back to your childhood home after 10+ years of being gone (no it has not been 10 years since I have been home to visit, I simply mean having lived there!). It seems like every time I "go home" something is different. For the most part it is exciting, I get to explore my childhood home and see what is different and exciting. Yet at the same time it is sad, because it makes it harder to remember it, as it was, when I lived there! The previous times I came home for visits I did a lot of "running", visiting people here and there. This time I stayed put (but for a couple of trips) and just let my child enjoy his aunties, uncles, cousins and grandparents. I let friends and family come to me!!! We had a great time and to all those who came to see us-thanks, it was nice visiting with you!
It is refreshing to look at things you take for granted through the eyes of a child, where every thing is new and exciting. Who knew that picking up acorns, pine cones, leaves and sticks in the rain could be so much fun and so rewarding!?!?!? How about seeing kitties, dogs, and horses in person instead of a book; riding on a tractor with Grandpa Jeff; chasing your cousin around grandpa and grandma's house and letting her chase you; playing with Grandma Jan's rock collection and then drawing on her refrigerator with dry erase markers; playing with Grandma Peg's "robot" foot and the Velcro straps; getting lots of hugs and kisses and tickles form family members who love you so much and wish you were closer, so that they could see you more than once a year!
So the old saying "You can't go home again", I think that for the most part it rings true. For you see I can go home and visit--for it's not the home, but the family I miss. And, as long as my family is there it doesn't really matter where we are! They say home is where your heart is and now my home is wherever my husband and son are, for they are my heart. Does that mean that I don't miss my family in Minnesota--hell no! I miss them terribly, and I think about them often, but right now it means that my house at the end of the cul-de-sac in Texas is home! We may be physically over a 1000 miles apart but they are always close in my head and my heart! Oh and just a phone call away!
