I feel a little like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz (minus the ruby red slippers, of course). Having spent the last five days in southeastern PA, sleeping in three different beds over the last four nights, I keep repeating to myself, over and over, "there's no place like home, there's no place like home..."
The kids and I have been moving non-stop since Sunday, indulging me in a little nostalgia... some of which was much better than I remembered and some of it failed to live up to my idealized memories. Even so, it was a fun, exhausting trip and one I am glad I was able to share with my kids!
My step-father is going to retire at the end of this month and my parents will finally, after a dozen years, move to the farm they own in Potter County. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am for them, how well-deserved this retirement is. But at the same time, I am a little sad. I still think of East Greenville as home; I still think of the guest room as my room, even though I haven't lived there in nearly 20 years. I have such great memories: birthday parties and graduation parties, family Christmas with my brothers and their families, hockey nights, when we'd have a group of friends over to watch Flyers games on PRISM back when I bled orange and black. When my biggest worry was which Dave was really the better hockey player... Poulin or Brown?
There's no moving date yet, but it will be sooner rather than later and it's possible that I've slept in the home I grew up in for the last time. And so I wonder - where will "home" be once my parents move... it's not like they are moving down the street; they are moving half-way across the state. What will I say when I go to visit my parents at the farm? In Potter County? I won't be going home anymore, just to their house for a visit. It's still a little weird for me.
Since I wanted to have one last chance to go home, I planned to do some things with the kids that we haven't done before and I will blog about each of those in more detail another night (or two or three), when I am not so tired.
For now I will simply say that I had a great week with the kids. I've mostly grown tired of unemployment but this summer continues to be a gift and I am so very grateful for the opportunity to spend this time with them, to show them things that were a part of my childhood (things like the Kutztown Folk Festival, the Lehigh Valley Zoo and the Franklin Institute). When the summer is over, I plan to have the blog printed and bound, giving us a very detailed look back at our summer. Maybe when the kids are 16 and they hate me for whatever awful things I am sure I will one day do to them, I can pull this off the shelf and remind them about all the great things I did for them and with them when they were young.
There is way more good than bad in the week. It was fantastic to catch up with friends I haven't seen in a while, great for the kids to have play mates on all but our last outing today, nice to have some adult conversations in a week where I otherwise might not have had enough of it.
We are only home for a day before we need to pack the car back up and head to Erie (where Rich will be running the Presque Isle Half Marathon on Sunday). He's worked hard to train and in some ways I am glad that my knee has prevented me over the last month from training the way I would have needed to train. His long-distance pace is almost two minutes per mile faster than mine... I am still a HUGE fan of the 'conversational pace' Coach Shubert used to talk each track season. Two hours to talk with friends is a big part of what makes distance running fun for a girl who never ran farther than a 400M when I was young. But Rich is competitive. And he deserves to run at his pace and to enjoy the accomplishment of what he's about to do.
So there you have it... a little glimpse into my walk down memory lane tonight. Hope you enjoyed the stroll.
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