It doesn't feel like home

I am writing this from the guest bedroom at my sister's house in Mount Dora, Florida. I was born a half hour up highway 441 at LRMC . If you either cross or go around Lake Harris, I was raised in a town about a half hour from here called Yalaha. After my parents divorced, I lived in Fruitland Park, a town about 10 minutes north of the Hospital I was born in. I have friends that lived all over this area, and I can still give directions to most of their houses, by landmarks if not by road name. As I drive around pictures of the past come alive, and if someone is unfortunate enough to be sitting in the passanger seat I will ramble my way from story to story as I point at this or that, trying to keep the car out of the ditch. I know this place. I have history in this place, and whenever I refer to this place, I call it home.

This trip, as in every trip in the past, I drove a meandering loop around the places I grew up, remembering and reliving the pleasant and the painful, always smiling. But this trip is somehow different. There is an emptiness I feel. I wouldn't say I am depressed, but I feel a depression, the weight of a conspicuous absence.

I thought for awhile it had to do with not running into the people I used to know. I have a history of seeing people from Leesburg High School, or First Presbyterian Church. People who, whether they live here or not, find their way to the Oakwood Smokehouse at the same time I am craving a plate of honest to goodness southern bbq. But today I ran into someone I knew from high school, and the feeling didn't subside.

Then, I thought I was put off by all of the changes and growth in the area. The despoiling of the places of my youth and other such notions as this. But I realized today that with all that had changed, nothing was really very different.

The epiphany came tonight, as i was talking with my wife. I didn't purpose to say this, the thought hadn't crossed my mind, but truly James had it right when he said the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. I said, "It doesn't feel like home, without you here."

There it is. Unexpected and unlooked for, "home" has been redefined.

I look forward to going home.