home is where your stuff is

Given that I have 3 weeks of vacation time to burn this year, and I only had taken 3 days to this point, I took a week off work.  Of course the only thing to do was to go home for a few days.  See the family - the ones that had not recently been here - and a few friends, stop by the plant to see if they miss me, and finish clearing leftover junk from my soon-to-be-someone-else's house.

I left Chicago Saturday morning early and hit the road.  I figured if I drove down, I'd have a car in order to do whatever running around I needed without inconveniencing anyone else.  Besides, I've always loved driving.  It's a great time to have long conversations with yourself and settle whatever issues may be hanging around in the back of your mind.  And it's not a bad drive at all - pretty countryside, only a couple of cities large enough that you have to time it around rush hours, and once you hit I-65, a straight shot to Alabama so you don't have to concentrate too much on missing turns.

It was good to be back in Huntsville and to see the kids and kids-in-law, and my brothers and their families.  I delivered Gino's pizza to Seth and Christine, 312 and 90-Minute beer to Lacy and Jeff, and a Hard Rock t-shirt to Sydney, making everyone happy.  The rest have to bring their rears up here to get their own souvenirs.  I was looking forward to a good time, and possibly feeling a little sad to head back North.

It's funny how expectations can be completely off track, and once you realize it, you are shocked that you didn't see it coming.  I didn't see it coming.  Being "home" didn't feel like being home at all.  I felt disjointed and depressed.  I didn't want to see anyone outside my immediate family, didn't want to answer the same questions over and over (how's Chicago???), and certainly didn't feel like I was on vacation.  I felt like I was a visitor, which is exactly what I was.  I was in the position for the first time ever of actually "visiting" my kids.  Always, I've visited their houses and then gone home.  Or visited with them out at a restaurant or shopping, and then gone home.  This time I visited for days instead of hours, and home was 600 miles away.

I wanted to come home - to Chicago.  My heart and love are with my family, but my stuff and therefore my comfort zone, is here.  I can't say I'm going home again when I go to Alabama; I will have to say I'm going to visit.  I'll be a visitor.  I'll visit.  That awkward status of being not where you belong and not completely in control.  A guest in others' homes, in their comfort zones amidst their stuff.  People do it all the time.  I guess I'm people, too.

So, here I am, at home, feeling odd for feeling odd.  Realizing that this new and foreign landscape is where I feel most comfortable.  Not because my heart is here, but because my life is here.  And my stuff...at least for a while.