Home For The Holidays

I'm sitting on a full sized bed on sheets that aren't the ones I've been sleeping on for the past 4/5 months.  I have a 20 inch TV in front of me and a box of Lucky Charms on my desk to my left.  Clothes are strewn all over the floor, I have pretty curtains on my window, and I have to climb only one set of stairs to get to my room.  Yup, Toto, we aren't in Kansas anymore.

After a few delays (including a hydrolic leak) I made it home Friday to surprise my mom when she got home from work.  There were tears, so many tears.  ut it made getting up at 3 a.m. to catch a cab to take a train to the airport all worth it.  Seeing my parents, seeing my friends, its all so surreal.  For so long they have just been voices on the other end of a phone, faces on pictures on walls, names in stories I tell my friends.  I haven't been able to touch them, hug them, but now I can.  And it's amazing.

It's weird to be here, after being gone for so long.  I've been in the same place for months and so used to my little four walls.  Nothing in Modesto has changed, but I've changed.  I can't put my finger on it, but something is different. 

No matter how excited I am to see my friends, I miss my D.C. friends so much.  These are the people I've lived with for so long, not just hung out with.  Like Sarah, she isn't there when I go to sleep anymore.  Weird.

I'll be home for a few weeks and I'm so excited to relax, reconnect with people, and just enjoy the life that I almost forgot I lived.