Home

Having finally mastered the baby gates, it's time to go.

I can't wait to get home.

The visit has been fantastic, and quite honestly, Maude and her family are family to me. Maude knows me better than just about anyone. It's easy, it's comfortable, and we've had a lot of fun.

But I miss the shit out of my husband.

It's funny to realize, you know, because I rarely miss people on a daily basis.

I grew up leaving and leaving and leaving. And it's not that I never missed people, but they were few and far between, and often limited to specific moments and situations or once a large span of time had passed. Even boyfriends I dearly loved.

But the general missing, the feeling of a huge, gaping lack, this is not my norm on a trip.

And this time, that's how it is. While it's only been a week, it just feels like too long and too far. And while I'm having fun, I realize it would be that much better if Nick were here too.

I want him in my life. Every day.

As an adult, I kept moving and moving, because nowhere was really home. I had this certainty that I would find home in a person, rather than a place. And I kept waiting for that to happen.

And just as I'd given up believing it would, it finally did.

Nick felt like home immediately, and although I've not questioned it, this trip confirms for me that he is, he really is.

It's hit me hard how tremendous it is, after so many physically and emotionally peripatetic years, to have a home. And to know absolutely and firmly that whatever the geography, he's not going anywhere, and neither am I.

I'd follow him to the ends of the earth, if it really came down to it. I've never been with anyone that I could actually say that about.

Seriously. If he had some huge, unrelenting, uncompromising desire to move somewhere like, I don't know, a chicken farm in Wisconsin or Ulan Bator, I'd go.

Of course, if he's reading this, it's worth mentioning that the time we spent there would likely be nothing short of living hell, and thus really not all that worth it.

But I'd go.

So, assuming best case scenario: the plane actually makes it across the ocean, I arrive safe and sound at Dulles, get picked up by one or both parents, and am home in time for dinner with my favorite husband, then I'll see you all tomorrow.

Hugs to all.