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with the sheep on the Frantz's field |
One week until we are home in Manitoba with Derek, dear friends, sleeping in our own beds, and with our own routines. One more week of California adventures, Saltbush Ranch relaxation, outdoor activities in long sleeve shirts, the home I grew up in.
This morning Christmas arrived in my attitude. I think it got lost in my excitement about our trip to California and I didn't want to think about it because it meant that our trip was coming to a close. But this morning as I heard
Straight No Chaser sing
"I'll Be Home For Christmas" as I drove down the 99, I got a lump in my throat thinking of the home my husband and I have made with our children. That song usually makes me cry with longing for California and the foggy Christmases of my childhood, but today it made me long for my husband and the home where I'm the Mom (that's who).
So this evening we decorated my parent's Christmas tree and admitted (finally), that we will have to leave this wonderful place, the home of my earliest memories, the home of my dear family; simultaneously welcoming Christmas. But those of us who are leaving have more to look forward to than those left here in California, because we get to keep the memories and take them back to Manitoba, to a home of our own, where (I just decided tonight) we are going to have a new (to us) tradition of filling stockings with fruit and nuts and candy canes. And where we will be welcomed home by a leapingly slobberingly grateful friend Linus, and the Dad-man we call our very own: Derek.
I don't think anyone can make you understand before you live it, this feeling of having your heart pulled in two directions. My home is in California, my home is in Manitoba, my family is in both places, and so is my desire, so are my thoughts. I hate to leave, I love to go, I fly gladly into the open arms awaiting me...in different directions. I cry to go, I laugh to arrive, I sigh ... wonder, where will my boys call home?
I struggle to be present in today, to enjoy where I am right now, instead of checking the weather for Winkler
and Shafter and always thinking, "It's ten o'clock here, eight o'clock there". It's true what they say, "Home is where the heart is". But what about when your heart is in two places at once?