Thoughts of home

My boots have been heavy the last couple weeks as I have thought a lot about the idea of home. I have just come through a nice, long several weeks in my new house in Brunswick -- the longest stretch without traveling since I moved last August. I have been simultaneously at home and homesick. I miss the city where I spent the last 13 years, the city where, in the truest sense of the words, I grew up. The city where I became who I am. I miss the people who walked with me on that journey. That's the true source of the sickness. I miss my people. I miss my family. I miss having the option of not being lonely.

It's weird to feel anything other than joy when so many things are going so rightly. In fact, I am overwhelmingly excited to be where I am in life and to envision my future. Unless, as I made the mistake of doing a couple weeks ago, I look too far into that future. I have always pictured myself retiring to the small town life in which I grew up. Even when I lived in my city, I knew one day I would return to my town. But, a couple weeks ago, reality shattered that vision. For the first time, I realized there is a very small chance that home will still be there when I am ready to return to it. The town will likely be there, and I love the town. But the town is not home. The people who are there, the love that is there, the comfort of knowing and being known... those are home. If I am fortunate to live to old age, those will have died with my grandparents and with my parents. When I am old, I may have no home to return to. The emptiness of that thought is nauseating. Nauseating and deeply, deeply lonely.