I don’t want to go home. I have grown to love this city. It feels like home. There is so much to see, so much to do. I guess this semester accomplished its original goal. I do want to move back here, at least for a while—but not to do musical theatre like I’d originally thought. No, I think I’d like to do classically-based music instead. Never thought I’d actually say that! Yet here I am saying it.
Yet I can’t wait to go home. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss my puppy. I miss the Christmas decorations, going caroling, wearing Christmas socks, baking Christmas cookies with my mom, listening to the same cassette tapes of Christmas music we’ve listened to every year for as long as I can remember, watching Christmas movies together, systematically working my way through the Christmas story in all four Gospels in bed in the nights leading up to Christmas, shopping for Christmas gifts for people, singing Christmas music in choir, and decorating the Christmas tree.
Sitting here in my living room in my flat, listening to a US Christian radio station online that’s playing Christmas music, looking at the mess I still need to clean up from the lovely Christmas/caroling-turned-'let's-make-a-film!' party we had here tonight, I feel a strange mix of happiness from a pleasant evening and underlying restlessness that I haven't been able to shake for several days, which is much more acute than usual this evening.
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I don’t know where I want to go. Home is a fluid concept these days. Home is my parents’ house in St. Louis, with my dog sleeping on the foot of my bed and my parents and I sitting around the dinner table laughing for hours.
Home is Fair Apt. #29 in Kirksville, when Elisabeth and I laugh until our sides hurt, have serious conversations about the most important things in the world, and cram as many friends as we can into our tiny apartment on Friday nights.
Home is my farm in rural Missouri, where I can walk outside in the morning and see all the beautiful rolling hills and just feel so close to the land or sit on the roof of the farmhouse at night and watch the shooting stars and just talk with God.
Home is London, where there’s a new adventure or bit of history to discover every day, where I feel so culturally at home, where God’s given me good friends and a lovely church.
Home is Heaven, the one place where I can finally be together with all of the most important people in my life in the same place at the same time, forever celebrating and praising the One who loved us enough to come and save prodigals like us and bring us Home.
Merry Christmas (a few weeks early), wherever this Christmas season finds you. To my dear brothers and sisters scattered across the globe and in heaven, I look forward to the day when we can celebrate Christmas face-to-face with one another, and more importantly, face-to-face with the One whose birth brought us life.
I know what you mean about home being multiple places. I think ultimately our home is with God and all of His children, more so than any place. I've been to Kirksville, Moberly, Branson and Columbia, and have fond memories of all of them, but mostly it's the people more than the place, though having trees and wildlife (like the squirrels at Truman) is definitely a plus. I think that any place where we're with God and doing His will is home, it's where we belong, there's a sense of peace and satisfaction that comes from it.
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