Memory Road Trip

I just completed  a 900+ mile literal memory road trip. I went to childhood homes, hangouts, schools, and cemetaries. I drove down the roads where I learned to ride a bike and drive a car. Went by the place of my first kiss, first school dance, first heartbreak, first fender bender, first legal drink, and first broken bone. Ended up on the streets where people lived that I haven’t thought about in years.

I went into buildings that I once frequented where nothing had really changed and often found new buildings where others had once stood. Drove through towns that I hardly recognized and ones that have remained the same for over 50 years. I discovered museums filled with immense history and sanctuaries of pure solitude.

I reminisced with old friends and made some new ones. Some of us have stayed put geographically, while others like myself have moved many miles away.

When the journey ended, I boarded a plane and headed home. Home. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? In my youth, I always considered home to be the place where I grew up. That feeling you get when you pull in to the gas station where you were still too young to drive. I thought when I moved away, that feeling would never follow me.

Home is different for me now. It is many years and miles from my youth. It is where I had my first adult job, bought my first home, married, bore my child, and traveled the legal jungle of my divorce.

Looking back, there are many places I could have ended up. I’ve even spent too many hours lamenting my choices; not any more. I am happy where I am and what I have done. I am where I am supposed to be.

I am home.