Homecoming

Finals, papers, it's all done. Flying standby was completely different this time, as on the way home, I got 1) on the first flight available, and 2) in business class seating. Got home around 11:30 at night, woke up at 7:15, went to church, all's well, I live happily ever after.

Kinda.

I love being in my own bed, in the house in which I grew up. I love it when both brothers are home. My room is MY room, I'm not going to be moving out in three months for good. The doodles/eventual murals are still on the walls, the plastic owl is on the bookcase, it's my room. Downstairs, it's all the same. Everything is where I left it at the end of August. The bookroom is more open, true, but everything's essentially the same.

The problem is when I step outside. My home town just doesn't feel like home any more. Parts of it are foreign to me, like the empty spot where a tree once stood, or the stack of fencing that a homeowner had removed. This building is closed, another building is something else. The people that drive by are unfamiliar to me.

I'm sure the feeling of not being home is, in part, caused by the knowledge that with another year of age (yeah, my brithday's today), I'm another year closer to finishing my degree, getting a job, and moving away. My wanderings aren't over yet.

I guess I have a ways to go before I get home.

² My soul longs, yes, even faints
For the courts of the LORD;
My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. 
³ Even the sparrow has found a home,
And the swallow a nest for herself,
Where she may lay her young—
Even Your altars, O LORD of hosts,
My King and my God.
⁴ Blessed are those who dwell in Your house;
They will still be praising You. Selah 

Psalm 84:2-4, NKJV