Going Home Again

Over at Homemakerland , wrote a post about the Wizard of Oz and the belief that there is no place like home. When I was 18, I would have vehmently disagreed with this statement.

After living my entire lifetime in a town so small that everyone knows everyone's business, I had a major chip on my shoulder. I vowed that I would never return to the sleepy town that I had called home for so long. And for quite awhile, I lived up to that vow. I came home for only a day during each break - and then I confined myself to my parents house. I lost touch with numerous friends. I saw them as reminders of a life that I was living behind.

That all changed in 2004, when my father called to tell me that my best friend from school and just given birth to a baby daughter. Curiously I asked what she had named the baby. My jaw dropped when the reply came back as "Lason". It was the name that I had suggested to my friend when were still in school. The fact that she remember touched me.

The next weekend, I drove to her house. As I stood outside I found myself getting nervous. Would she remember me? Would she talk to me? Should she forgive me for all the years that we had lost, the things that I had missed out in her life? I got my answer when she came running out to embrace me.

Lason is now 3 years old, and the big sister of London. And in the last 3 years, I found myself spending more time in my hometown. I am reconnecting with people from my past, slipping into old routines. Routines that are as comfortable as my favorite pair of jeans.

Although I do not see myself returning to my hometown to live again, I know that the tiny town will always be home. And the people in it stand ready to welcome me whenever I came by for a visit.