defining home

Hooray for Home!

While waiting in line for the bathroom at the airport in Rome early Saturday morning, Young One announced:

"Momma, when I get home I am going to draw a great big airplane, and then I am going to put a big X over it.  No more flying.  I am then going to draw my house and circle it with a heart.  I am staying home."

In the past, the time away from home did not seem to bother her.  This year, she was longing for her home and her friends in Italy at the end of the second week.  It never caused tears or prevented her from enjoying her days, but when we had private, quiet moments together, she confessed that she missed her friends a whole lot and wished that she could be with them, at home.  Forget the action-packed, fun-filled days with doting grandmothers and fun cousins -- she secretly wanted to be home. Home.

I'd previously thought that home would be a tricky concept for her.  Silly of me, really.  Home is her safe place, her community, her school, her play out back, her best friends, her favorites of pasta and polenta, her way-too-pink walls, her mom & dad and our close network of friends -- that's home.  It shouldn't come as a surprise;  we've worked relentlessly for this very thing since she's been born. However, for the first time in the nearly nine years that I've lived in Italia, it genuinely, totally feels like my home here, too.  I am grateful that she has enabled me to arrive at this realization.  It's a good thing.

Next summer -- we'll cross the ocean blue. . . but likely cut it a bit short.
I, too, want to be home.