Home

The familiar hills. The familiar scenes and smells. The familiar path. The familiar faces. The familiar winding roads that bring me home.

I'm home for a few days before I leave for a 6-week trip with [CRU] to VA Beach. Every time I visit home, I'm greeted with the smells of warmly lit candles, and something baking in the oven. I'm greeted with my dad meeting me outside, offering to help take in my stuff and my mom enthusiastically exclaiming, "Well, look who it is!"

Home's a funny place, these days, though. Memories flood my mind of Friday night football games, Saturday night hot-tubbing parties, homecomings, volleyball championships, volleyball sleepovers, summer pool parties, sneaking out of study hall to play frisbee, and late-night conversations. Nostalgia, thick as the August air (thank you, Matt Wertz).

As faces appear in my mind of old high-school friends, I think of their 17 year old faces. I think of them in their sports jerseys. I don't think of their new, more mature faces -- surrounded by new husbands, new wives, new children.

Home doesn't fit my soul like it used to. It used to fit tight and snug and just like I was created for this place. And it was good. It felt nice. It felt right. Today, though, it feels like I walked into the store, found my size of jeans, but they just look funny; just don't fit quite right.

And it's not that I long for the days past. I don't. They were sweet, indeed. But, as a matter of fact, I am glad familiarity has been stripped, and the strangeness of surroundings and emotions has filled its place. I don't necessarily feel a sense of establishment I once did. And I like it. It convinces me I wasn't created to call this blue and green sphere shape home.