homecoming

Oh for words to capture the ache and longing of returning. I am here at Bryan, and everything is the same (save some unsightly construction)--and yet it is not the same. I am not the same. I sit on the porch of the cafe and look out over these mountains that I love, that were once so familiar to me; and yet they are not familiar anymore. I am an observer now, not a participant. I may sit in classes, but it is as a stranger. I may talk to friends and professors, but I am now a stranger to most of them. They may profess delight in seeing me, but they have other lives that no longer involve me.

Where is home? "Where the heart is," goes the cliche; but my heart is here, and this is not home. My home is with Eddie, soon. My home is with my parents, now. I am a displaced person. I am a wanderer, hanging in limbo between three homes that I love so much. I will never here find satisfaction. I will always long and ache for the place where I am not. Perhaps this is God's way of making me long and ache for Him.