Home

I want to go home.
Or rather, I want to be home.
As in feel at home where I am. Wake up in the morning, knowing where I am and why, and where I'm headed in life. Near things I love, both people and objects.
Settled.
Is this a function of my age?
Or, failing that, I want to just jet off and live somewhere exotic and new that I've never been. That I can discover. That's hot.
Either nest.
Or cut and run.
Am I crazy?
I'm sick of this flat now. And I'm certainly sick of winter, like everyone is, all over the northern hemisphere, I think.
I just hang out in my bedroom all the time because it's the only room that welcomes me.
My knees hurt now too, like they never used to. Is that from the two sets of steep stairs here?
Can't wait to move now. A month still to go though. And plenty of packing.
It's not like I want to go home to Washington, if Washington even is home. What would I go home to now there? House long sold, jobs long gone.
Neither of my kids live there either.
And the longer you're away from somewhere, the less tied you feel.
Not that I ever felt hugely tied to Washington.
Even though I grew up there, after my Italian parents emigrated to D.C. when I was three years old.
And I just spent a dozen years there, raising my boys.
So quite a few years there, all added up.
Then there's Italy, the other half of my new home here. Not half at all though. Maybe a quarter, if I'm lucky.
As soon as you come back here, Italy feels like another universe.
Another planet.
And now, I need to stay away, leave my son to get on with making a life there for himself, without his mother around.
And I need to work.
To support our life here.
Work here.
And keep working on making a life here.