Homesick

When we moved to Virginia two years ago, I fully expected to feel homesick. Oddly enough, I never did. (Well, there was that one day this past spring--well over a year and a half after the move!--when I really wanted to hug my Dandy, but that hardly counts as what I'm talking about.) My family was sick that we weren't around anymore, but I was strangely okay with being displaced. I mean, I had my moments of feeling frustrated and lost in a place that was foreign to me, but I never really longed for home. I just sort of felt like a nomad adventurer or something.

Ever since we moved, I have felt like a resident of nowhere. Because our crazy life situation allows us to essentially fall through the cracks of everyone's rules for residency requirements, we never had to establish ourselves as Virginia residents, though Texas would probably be sour on the idea that we carry Texas driver's licenses with an address where we do own a home but do not reside. Our car insurance company is so confused by our Virginia address for Texas insurance on a Texas vehicle that is "garaged" in Virginia. We still get quite a bit of mail in Texas. It's like we fell off the map, and no one knows where our home is.

I think it was two to three years before my maiden name began to feel as awkward as my married name and a few more years before my married name really settled in my mind. I have been going through a period like that with my idea of "home," too. I had never lived anywhere but my hometown for twenty-seven years. We moved to Virginia with the expectation that Texas would always feel like home, and Virginia was just a stop on life's journey. Boy was I surprised this past Spring when I realized C'ville is "home" to me now. This past year brought about more confidence for learning the city, several key people who will be life-long friends, and just general settling-in. That cramped and cluttered apartment is my home now. It is where my daughter has spent more than half her life. It is where our adult selves seem to have blossomed. It is where we have finally started to really grow up and flourish. I'm finally knowing my way around and liking the city more. It is where I take Ava to the library and do daily things like grocery shop at stores I thought would always seem foreign to me because they aren't HEB. It is where our trusted pediatrician is, where our "friend family" is, where we laugh and play and thrive.

Now we are back in Texas for the summer. Notice I don't say we are "home" for the summer. No. We left our home to come to Texas for the summer, and Ava and I are homesick. It is nice being with our loved ones here (or at least close enough for a few good visits), but it's just not home. HEB seems different...not quite foreign, but certainly not familiar. When I shop there now, I miss the silly sound of thunder in the produce section (when the sprayers come on in the Kroger) and the affordable Nature's Promise organics at Giant. I miss having a Whole Foods Market five minutes from home. Even our home church is beginning to feel more foreign than it does familiar, and I never thought that would happen. We have finally found a new church in C'ville, where I think we'll stay for the short remainder of our life there, and I miss going. I miss our routine. I miss having access to our things. I miss having a real bed for Ava to sleep in every night. I miss having the daily opportunity to make our space more functional, even though that usually translates into chasing my tail. I miss chatting with my daily-life friends and watching Ava play at her favorite parks; it's too hot to play outside in Texas much. I may be back where my "roots" are, but I miss the familiarity of HOME. And home isn't here. Several times a week, Ava says to me out of the blue, "Mommy, I just want to go home to our house now." And all I can say is, "Me too, Shoogie."