going home

a few mondays ago i packed up the car and the kids and drove home. through the mountains, through fog and rain. through small towns, curving highways, and the beginnings of fall.

i still say that - drove home. after a decade in a place you'd think it would be home, but i don't think it will ever change. pittsburgh is home. and that week felt like home.

we visited with lots of family. i took my kids to a couple places i went to as a child. we explored outside in gorgeous fall weather.

the a/c was off, the windows were open, and the sky was close to the ground.

we went back for our college homecoming. we saw people we miss and talk to regularly, and people we had forgotten.

we saw old coaches, and old friends. everyone seemed exactly the same, just older. at one point the kids weren't with me and i got asked if i was a student. i'm not going to lie - that one felt good.

going home is always strange. sometimes things are exactly how i remember them, and nostalgia sinks in, and my rose-colored glasses rarely leave my face {except when my daughter won't sleep}. other times the differences are stark, and it feels like my home got lost inside this other place that only sort of resembles the place i once knew.

this time i drove past new stoplights. we visited a playground i loved that had been torn down, but rebuilt in the best way.

my kids climbed on grandpa's fire trucks.
another morning we went to an orchard i hadn't been to in years, and picked out small pumpkins and apple cider to bring back with us.

we watched my college team play a game. the kiddos spent the entire time running back and forth at the bottom of the bleachers chasing each other and squealing with glee.

the kids read books with grandpa and watched old vhs tapes that were quite literally watched to death by the end of the week.

i went for a run through the hills and the rain.

we watched the start of the homecoming parade, and the kids collected enough candy to last them through halloween. by the time we left for lunch we had a backpack chock full of candy - so much so that we had a hard time reaching the necessary diapers inside.

the weather was my kind of perfect. it was a mix of sunny some days and cloudy and grey others. the kind of clouds that wrap you up and promise that rain is coming, but you don't have to bear the rain quite yet.

it made me miss those days. college days were always full of promise. of not knowing what would happen later in life, but still being excited about the prospects.

there tends to be an air of optimism on college campuses - a world-conquering attitude that makes students think anything is possible.

it's intoxicating.

real life can smack you around a bit.
sometimes it takes going home to know that there are still endless possibilities out in the world.

xoxo