I'm sitting in the kitchen of my parents' house as I type. This is the house I grew up. The house so familiar to me that I not only navigate it in the dark, but I am able to tell you what every creak, squeak, and thump means.
This is the house where I waited as an anxious teenager for the phone to ring (no cell phones back then...) This is the house where mother nursed me back to health on my sick days and dad grounded me for acting out.
This is the house where my family gathers around the kitchen table to feast on meals fit for royalty. This is the house where things change slowly and some days, I'd like them to not change at all.
Most importantly, this is the safest house I know, the house that beckons me home, the house that holds my mom's soft hug and my dad's bear hug and my brother's ropy, muscly hug. This is the little light house that I never have to scan the horizon for because my heart always knows where to find it.
This is the house, the home, the place, and these are the people, the family, the loved ones that I have to drive away from tomorrow.
It never gets easier. No, no, it never does. Because, you see, after each goodbye, before the next hello, time passes. This expired time holds sunrises, laughter, minor spats, and bushels of laughter that we spend very much apart. Life goes on and we miss out. Life goes on and life runs out. I make a concentrated effort to not fixate on this, to not dwell, but it sticks to the back of my skull and makes me more and more anxious to be home with every day that passes.
We grow up and they send us out into the fascinating world to make a life of our own. But how can anyone expect for me to find anything that can compare to the nest I just left? Not in a million years could any house I create provide love, security, acceptance, and that general sense of just-belonging as my childhood home. Who are we kidding? Little birds don't want to be pushed out of the nest to fly for a reason. Is this what growing up is? To strive every day to carve a life that fits as well as the one we abandoned?
How lucky I am to have a family that I cannot possibly not miss constantly. How lucky I am to be able to come home to them so often and not miss out on our life. How blessed I am to have my old nest to fly home to in times of hurt, in times of joy, in times of celebration.
I love you, family. We are normal and abnormal by all written standards, and I wouldn't want it any other way. We are best under the same roof, but we will love each other and plan well for the next time.
