Sunday, January 5, 2014

Home Sweet Home

Today concluded a whirlwind 11 days of traveling through Spain, the first half with my wonderful family and the second by myself. I've accumulated a lot of pictures [definitely ran out of memory on my camera] and stories and receipts, some of which I'll share with the Internet soon. [Not the receipts. That would be boring.]

But I'm a wee bit tired at the moment. Unfortunately for me, I rarely manage to sleep in buses or cars or trains so I missed out on several prime napping opportunities. So the actual this-is-what-I-did-on-vacation posts will be written...later.

As much as I lovelovelove traveling, it was verrrrry nice to walk down familiar streets and through the door of my apartment. I'm actually glad to be getting back into my routine of work and relaxation. Don't get me wrong - in two weeks I will be eagerly anticipating our next long weekend and the possibility of going somewhere new. But now I just want to be home.

And not just "home" in Spain. Walking through my apartment, I saw the shampoo bottle one of my sisters left in the bathroom. I saw the Christmas presents that my family brought me [they brought the most perfect gifts]. I saw the homemade paper Christmas tree that I had set on the table as a centerpiece for our family meals.

Feeling sentimental, I grabbed my computer and my hymnal - that my family brought for me from home because it didn't fit in my suitcase in September - and settled down on the couch to check email, upload pictures, etc.

I was doing all right with all my emotions until I decided to open my hymnal.

Number 280
[Gosh, even just writing about it an hour later makes me tear up...]

I have just a few hymn numbers memorized after years of hymn sings and church services. Amazing Grace is one of them, and one of maybe two songs that I have entirely memorized.

So naturally, when I saw which page I had randomly turned to, I started bawling.

[I'm glad that I came back a day early so my roommate isn't here to witness my crying because I would have a bit of trouble right now explaining it in Spanish.]

I have wanted to leave home for years. I cannot even pinpoint when exactly this urge to travel and live somewhere else began. I never, ever felt homesick at camps or church trips; I didn't really miss home during the six weeks that I was in Peru.

But now that I've been gone for over 3 months, and just had a fabulous visit from my family, I can't stop thinking about all the things I do love about home - all the things I'm missing.
  • Christmas carols and hymns
  • Spending time with my grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles
  • Being at my church, where I know the structure and the people and the songs
  • King Cake [I'm not even joking. I've been craving a legit New Orleans style King Cake for a whole month, since I hear/see stuff about the Three Kings everywhere.]
  • Driving my car
  • Petting my cat
  • Seeing friends at our 5 year high school reunion [And oh my goodness I can't believe we graduated four and a half years ago.]
I will finally admit to it. I am homesick. I'm glad to be back in Soria - I absolutely love it here - but I desperately want to be home as well. I feel like I've been cut in half, and I can only keep one half satisfied at a time. No matter where I am, no matter what I do, I'm going to be missing out on something. I'm going to be wishing I were somewhere else.

And when I'm not boo-hooing about it, I'm really annoyed. Annoyed that I have to pick between two things I love, annoyed that I'm sad right after a fantastic trip, and mostly annoyed that teleportation hasn't been invented yet because that would solve all my problems.

So if someone wants to go ahead and make me a teleportation device, I would be super grateful. I might even share my Poptarts, because I have two whole boxes of them now :)

Feliz 2014! Happy New Year, everyone.

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