Home?

I was on the phone the other day with a friend and co-worker who asked me about my pending move (4 days from now, but please, let’s not even mention that…) We discussed my travel calendar and how I will manage returning to Michigan as often as possible to be with the girls.  I mentioned my first trip home was (a long) 12 days after the move, and he quickly corrected me, “Michigan will no longer be your home.  You have to realize that.”  And as much as I love it when people call me out like that, because I often need to hear it, it was hard to admit that he was right.

I thought about that comment all weekend as I weeded through and packed up all of my belongings- not OUR stuff, MY stuff.  Even as the walls are becoming bare, and the rooms start to have that empty echo as everything is removed, I don’t think that it has hit me yet.  I’m leaving. This place that I have called home all my life.  This state, that despite the fact that in some ways it may not be as strong as it once was, I love dearly and know how much it has to offer;  amazing sports teams, any recreation you could imagine, Northern Michigan in the summer, just to name a few.  And this doesn't even begin to touch on the wonderful and amazing set of friends and family that I will leave behind.  I know in my heart I will always be a Michigan girl, but I wonder when I will stop calling it home.   What has to happen for you to call a place “home”?  Are all of your favorite things in just the right place?  Have you made friends with the neighbors, and know some of the local hot spots?  Is it the first time I say y’all? 

I know that at some point it will happen- Michigan will become the place that I am “from” not where I “am”.  And when this change occurs, I wonder how it will make me feel, and how I will hold the previous 37 years that I spent here.  I know it’s not as if I won’t ever return, but those of you who have moved from this place you once called home know what I am talking about;  it’s never the same when you come back.   But then again, maybe that’s the point.  That as you grow and change, that it’s ok that you look at things differently, including where your heart calls home.