Home.

Spending time with another family for the last four days has really made me miss mine. Don't get me wrong, this is certainly the trip of a lifetime, but it's being away from everyone I love that's hard.

Thinking about this today, I remembered a fight I got in with my parents a few years back. I was a freshman in college and had come home on a Sunday, like normal, to do my laundry, because I was always too good for the dorm washers and dryers. When I walked into my room that afternoon, there were two new windows in one wall of my room. Now, no matter where I look, I can see the outside. I was furious. How dare they not ask? I already had two windows! Why two more?!

I gave them the cold shoulder and harumphed my way back to school that evening, not even thanking mom for letting me do laundry at home. When I got back to school, there was an email waiting for me: an apology from my dad for not telling me and explanations why he added a few windows. In the email was also a small anecdote of my father's childhood and why home is home. Here's an excerpt:

"All of which reminds me of when I went off to college. Three weeks later my parents called and said they were selling our house and moving to Florida. When I went to visit them at Christmas, I didn't have a room any more at all. I stayed in the den. But it was fine, and it felt like home because Mom and Dad were there. Mom was worried that I wouldn't feel at home, because she had always worked so hard to be a good homemaker for us. She never did anything else at all. Two weeks ago, when I went to stay with them in their retirement apartment, Mom again said, as she had so many years ago, that she hoped I felt at home there. I just told her that wherever she and Dad were felt like home to me."

He then warned me that of course, home at some point might be on the water, but it would still be wherever he and mom are. We laugh about that day now, but I save this email for days I get a little homesick, just to think back. I love home more than anything in the world and I know it will always be there, wherever there is, and however many windows it might have (or portholes). Don't forget to tell the people you love that you love them! I love you family!

The message concluded in this: "Anyway, be thankful that you have windows. My room in high school was a coal bin in the basement. But that's another story."

OkOk enough sobbinh! We drive all day tomorrow! New Mexico here we come!