So This Isn't Home Sweet Home. Get Used To It

I have a friend that left Houston a couple years before I did. She and her husband just returned for a short vacation, a showing off the kid, catching up with old friends whirlwind tour.

I am a bit nervous about returning to Houston in September.

Bon Jovi was wrong, you can't go home. Because it isn't home anymore. It has ceased to be home. Everything and everyone has changed. Including you.

During my conversation with my friend, we gossiped about our friends, she caught me up on all that I have missed. She visited our local Cheers. And man, was she happy to get on a big jet plane, with her 18 month old son that was throwing up every 3 1/2 minutes. She wanted to get back to her real home. The home she had created, away from home.

I grew up in the same small town until I was 15. We then moved to Texas. I hated my parents for a long time. I had to make friends, start over, be the new kid for the first time in my life. It wasn't pretty. My mom found and hung a wonderful framed picture.

Read the title again. My mom was brilliant. And ever so right. And ever so wrong.

I don't call this place my home yet. But it is. The things I love are here. The boy, the cats and all the material belongings I like to dust on a regular basis. Home is where you make it. This is home and I better damn well get used to it.