home.

i haven't been the best at writing here, i know this to be true.  there is a strange phenomenon taking place, though...somehow the days are disappearing right from under my nose.  how can it be possible that we have been here, in st.stephen, for almost a month already?  it seems like it's been only a few days, or maybe a week - but then, that's not right either.  what it really feels like is that there is no time, none at all.  if calendars didn't exist, i'd guess we could have been here for months and months. 

part of it, i suppose, is that this place always just feels like home.  i lived here, new brunswick of all places, for six years (school years) and that's actually a big chunk of my life (my life which, by the way, seems to be expanding as quickly as north american waistlines.  did i mention that i'm going to be thirty soon?  thirty?!).  places like todd's point, dover hill, new river...these places are practically tattooed on my body, a physical knowing that defies logic. 
it is like this with some places, and with some people.

i know that this is rare, to have a place that feels like home when my 'real' hometown is a suburb that doesn't recognize me anymore, probably never did.  so why can't i stay?  chris and i are tempted, believe you me, to plunk ourselves down on any old creaky porch in this town and let our legs grow into roots that go deep down.  however. 
we can't stay.  we just can't.  it doesn't 'seem' like the right time, if there ever will be a right time.  but there is a longing in me for stability, a longing that would have shocked the pants off of teenage me (weird expression).  i always prided myself on not being a homebody.  as a child, i would beg, literally beg to be sent to camp, for the whole summer if possible, for my whole life if my parents could afford it!  (they couldn't).  but they did somehow manage to send me to camp, every summer for weeks, and i trotted happily off with never a tear, barely a wave.  as a teenager, i tried to be everywhere at once, and everywhere was decidedly not at home.  it wasn't that i didn't love my family, because i truly did (do).  but i didn't need to be at home, because it was enough to know that home was there for me to come back to.  and the sense of home was very real, very necessary to my adventuring. 
when i went to australia after high school, what it meant to be seriously dating an australian was a concept that was lost on me...until i actually got there and realized that i could never imagine staying for the rest of my life, not for him or anyone else.  it wasn't home, and i had the distinct feeling that it never would be. 

i don't have a family home anymore.  after cancer stole my mom, there was no more glue and everything fell apart.  it doesn't take a genius to figure out that my longing for stability is very deeply connected to my very real lack of it.  i just want a home again, a place to adventure from and then return to, a place to lay my head.  i don't know why i of all people should deserve this when Jesus himself didn't have it, but i can imagine that he longed for it, especially after knowing the fullness of home that only heaven could be.  at least he had a strong sense of purpose to keep him warm at night!  it would seem i am without that too...

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