No Place Like Home

After a crazy winter involving lots of transitions, spring has brought with it a peaceful contentedness.

At last referrals are starting to trickle in locally and today was my first "local workday". I haven't had a local workday since moving from the old town, and quite honestly, I still find myself feeling a little more at home there than I do here. That seems strange, even to me: I was born and raised here, and my family is all here. This is home, right?

But the old town... well, I'd put down some definite roots. And my daily routines and especially as it pertains to work, well, they belong there, not here.

So today I got up, left the house at a reasonable hour, drove just up the highway a-ways and started seeing kids. Right here in my very own county. And then, I came home. It didn't take me 2-3 hours to get back, when I was done, I was done.

I had forgotten what that was like. It's what I did in the old town day after day for several years. And I realized, that's why there feels more like home than here. I didn't realize how important work was to me. I need to work to feel involved in the community, I think. I need to get up in the morning, leave the house, and see families right here without extensive drives, and then come back home, to feel like I really belong here.

So hopefully today is the start of a real homecoming. I'm already counting down the weeks until I don't have to drive back to the old town anymore, though the final goodbye is certainly going to bring with it a bit of sadness.

By summer, I'll really belong here, and FEEL like I do. They say that home is where your heart is, and my heart has been HERE for a very long time; in fact, it never left. Home is where your work is just doesn't have quite the same ring to it. :)

Maybe my heart is more into my work than I realized it was. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, when my work involves changing children's lives.

Whatever is going on, I'm just glad to not only be home, but to feel like I'm home.

Happy Spring, everyone!