After traveling with my mom and dad from Florida to North Carolina and then on to Michigan to deliver them while they visit family and friends as an escape from the blazing hot southern summer, I’m filled with perma-grin happiness (although you can’t see it through my required travel mask) as I travel back to Florida. We made some incredible memories and saw some really cool things during our journey - I’ll write about that next time...so for now, I’m awe struck how good it felt to be home!
Home is always home...do you feel that way too?
I think “home” could be a place, a feeling, a gathering of loved ones - for me; it’s actually all three! There’s nothing like pulling into a town you’ve known since childhood, looking around to see what’s changed, knowing the “good” spots to go eat and shop, or where to
go to get the best Coney dog. (it’s a Detroit thing) Home is a place where you laugh about old stories and new adventures with those that know you best, home is where you enter a house and immediately take off your shoes to get comfy, and home is where you feel the most like yourself. Don’t read it wrong, I love my life in Florida and wouldn’t change it for the world, but home is different...A different kind of special! It’s a combination of history and memories wrapped up with a bow like a present you can’t wait to open once you arrive. It’s like a warm (green) blanket that holds you close with the perfect amount of security and warmth. Home doesn’t compete with anything else, because it knows it’s spot in your heart and that it can never be replaced.
For me, my physical home is a place I left when I was 19 yrs old and then again 11 years ago to settle in Florida. So basically, I’ve lived away from my home for about the same amount of time as I haven’t, but it’s always welcomed me back with open arms. What I realized on this trip was my home is in my heart; it’s my mom laughing so hard she might pee, my niece and nephew being able to relate to me as adults and talk about adult topics, hugging my sister until we can’t breathe, listening to my brother belly laugh as we exchange looks knowing what the other is thinking, hearing my dad say one liners that we all repeat for hours because we want to keep smiling, or quietly appreciating my sister’s and my husband for joining in on all of our family craziness! Home won’t leave my heart even when its time for me to go back to Florida or when it’s time for people to leave our sight. I’m forever grateful for the home I was given and will never take it for granted. Its evolved into the symbol of all things I need in life! I’ll never be far...
Because, home is always home!
