Home.

I came home for the holidays this year – got here on Christmas Eve and will head back to San Francisco on New Years Day.  Coming home for me means a 45-minute BART ride to the East Bay from San Francisco to the same house I grew up in.

For one reason or another on this trip home, now 5 days into it, I find myself totally and completely at peace. More so than I’ve felt in the recent months.  I don’t know where or when exactly this feeling started; I was definitely NOT zenned out around my relatives on Christmas.  But yesterday, on a cold Sunday afternoon, I was walking around the corner along my mom’s front yard and it hit me, “Wait a minute. I’m happy.”

I LOVE being home.  I’m so aware right now how crazy stupid lucky I am to have this type of home to come home to.  The same house.  The same dining room table.  The same bricks in the front yard that I watched my dad lay.  The same bricks in the backyard that I sat on to wait for my turn on the swing.  And even a few of the same neighbors who knew me before I was born.

On Thanksgiving this year, this is what I said I was grateful for at the dinner table.  To have this home to come home to.

Thanks Mom and Dad.