Homesickness

I have been homesick exactly three times in my entire life. The first time was my first night at girl scout camp at the age of 13. I was so excited to go- it was a theater camp and I was absolutely certain that it would be a life-altering experience. My parents dropped me off, I said "See you later" and by that night I was devastatingly homesick and wanted nothing more than my room and my mom's home-cooked dinner. That feeling passed quickly. By the end of two weeks I was nowhere near ready to return home. I would have stayed another two weeks without blinking an eye. Somehow on that first night, I managed never to write one of those sad "Please come get me" letters to my parents- not because I didn't want to go home, but because I'm not the type who easily admits defeat. In other words, I'm as stubborn as a mule.

Homesickness came a second time was when my parents dropped me off for college. Again, I was excited to start my new life and anxious to see them go until, that is, they actually got in the car and drove away. Then I felt thoroughly ill and not at all sure why I had decided to move eight hours away from a perfectly good place to live. I got over that too. I met some friends in my first class (Music Theory I), who are still my friends- really now they are more like family- and while I loved my home in Pennsylvania, I made a new one in....the bleak cornfields of Ohio.

The third time that homesickness found me was this afternoon. I'm not exactly sure what did it- it might have been the hotel key effect. That is when you walk up to your hotel building, press the "up" button on the elevator, confidently step on and then can't remember what floor your room is on. It starts out slowly. First it's "I know I'm on the fifth floor but I'm not sure what my room number is because I was on the fifth floor at yesterday's hotel too." Then it's "who cares what room I'm in, let's start with what floor I'm on" And no, it's not because I'm losing my mind....at least I certainly hope not.

It could also have been the "which car is mine?" syndrome. This is at least my fourth rental car of this job and if you count the cars I have shared with my boss it's my sixth.... in two weeks. That means that when you walk out of CVS and look for your car, you have to press the lock button to hear it beep at you. This is not because I couldn't remember where I parked- it was because I walked to where I parked and for the life of me couldn't remember that I'm driving a Dodge.

But I think I know what the trigger really was for this odd homesick feeling. It was having a layover in the airport in my very own city. As we were landing there today, at the DFW airport, I looked out the window and could see the skyline of Dallas. I could see the interstate that I would normally take to go home after landing and grabbing my bags and climbing into the passenger seat of a friend's car. Yet, instead of going home I ate a rather gross breakfast at an unnamed chain restaurant and then read my book and wandered the halls of the DFW airport during the longest four hour layover of my entire life. And that is when I started to want to go home.

When I got to the small Louisiana town I'm in right now, the feeling lingered. It lasted for the long wait to pick up Dodge #2, it lasted for the drive to the hotel, it lasted while the hiccuping clerk checked me in, on the elevator ride up to my floor, and then into the door and onto the king sized bed.

So I went to a movie. Because inside a movie theater, one could be anywhere. And when I left, I chased the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen all the way back to the hotel, hoping I would get there in enough time to take a picture. I caught it, just as it was about to disappear over the edge of the earth. It was as bright red as a sun can be with a surreal looking yellow sky. And that is when the feeling finally passed and I didn't mind being in the state of Louisiana at all.