Home Again, Home Again

The primary benefit of the move from Los Angeles to the Washington, DC area is that it puts me within a couple of hours' drive of my parents, who aren't getting any younger even if they also aren't getting noticeably more mature. So when I found out last week that my Dad was having another surgery to remove another melanoma (the first was a little less than two years ago, the week before we moved here), this time I could go up and be with them. They didn't "need" me, but it was definitely more fun for all of us to go out drinking and dining in style in Philadelphia the night before than it was for them to hang out in their hotel room, and for me to be at home wondering if I should have gone. I may not be a good influence, but I can be a good listener. It went well, we had lunch, I made him sit down with an icepack, and I got on a train for two hours, rather than a plane for 5 1/2, to go home. Pretty cool, really.

Now I'm back home, waiting to go pick up my son from his fourth visit to a potential new school in three weeks. He hates this; almost as much as he hates being in his current school. I think we'll leave my feelings about the whole issue aside for now.

Is it possible to be homesick for someplace you've never lived? For the last two months I've had this unbelievable yearning to go to Scotland and/or southwest England; mainly to go walking on downs and highlands. It truly feels like homesickness; like if I could go and just be there for a while I'd be where I belonged, and I'd be refreshed. Yet I've never been to Scotland, never been to the Cotswolds. I've been to London, and to Wales, both of which I love passionately, but the rest of this is all some made up imagery in my head. And yet, it feels so real--and maybe the universe heard me this time.

My husband's business trip to Shanghai next week meant we had to cancel our President's Day weekend plans (bummer), and then he had a trip to London added right in front of the Shanghai trip (as an international relations major I am of course not at all envious of my husband's jet-setting career. nope, not me). So :12 days without him, four of which my son would be on vacation from school. What was I going to do with four days, no vacation plans, and a husband in London for the long weekend? Hey, wait a minute....

Yes. We're all going to London and I'm so excited I can't sit still. I haven't been there in ten years. It isn't a solitary trek across the moors to a cup of tea by the fire, but it's London, and I feel like I'm going hoooome.