Last week, for the Thanksgiving holiday, I didn't venture home like millions of people did across the country. As big of a homebody as I am, I haven't spent a Thanksgiving in California since I was maybe eight years old. I haven't spent Thanksgiving with family since I came to college. While my weekend in Albany with Nick's family was warm and welcoming (and a blast), it never gets easier being away from home.
Lately, I've been really overwhelmed with what I want to do once I move away from Vermont next April. Although I want my career path to be the wind that guides me, I can't help but be stuck on location. I think about how much I would have loved being home last week in the warmth of my house, surrounded by not only the family, but also the "family" that has slowly been growing over the years. I think about how I'm heading home for the Christmas holiday in a little over two weeks and how I'm already anxiously anticipating how short of a trip it will be. My heart is drawn to so many places: New York City, Chicago, Denver, Portland, and even overseas, yet how much longer can I handle the separation anxiety of being away from home?
Maybe "anxiety" is too strong a word. I have had the best four years of my life in Vermont and have not regretted a thing. I am more than pleased with how my life has been thus far and I know I would be truly blessed if my life continued to be this rewarding. In a perfect world, I would put all my favorite locations on one little island, filled with all my favorite people, but that's not how life works, is it? I just have to let go of the "what ifs" and "why nots" and all the other questions that tend to shape my life in a glass-half-empty sort of way, rather than glass-half-full.
They say home is where the heart is. I guess my heart needs to learn how to be in more than one place.
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