Thoughts of home

I was hit with a serious bout of homesickness last night. I've been homesick in the important sense of wanting to be at home in a normal environment for my family. Last night I couldn't help but think about and actively miss specific physical comforts of home. There are obvious ones like the classic "my own bed", but I was thinking about a lot of other things too. In one of those near dream experiences when you are hovering between awake and asleep I took a virtual walk through our house in my mind. I felt that I missed even something as basic as the layout and floorplan of the house. I felt really homesick as I walked past my guitar hanging on the living room wall. As I walked through the family room I thought about the shows on our Tivo that have probably starting rolling over so we won't have the episodes from where we left off watching. In the kids room I felt really sad as I saw Julia's Raggedy Ann blanket lying on the floor. When she and I are home alone we snuggle/cuddle on that blanket on the floor before she goes to bed. The blanket has a little pouch where it can all be folded up into a pillow. Each night before bed she was putting Soccery (a pink and white Nike soccer ball given to her by the wonderful friend Ouida) to bed in that pouch after we cuddled. I could go on. I'm sure the comforts of home are intertwined with the emotional aspects, as clearly evident in missing a child's Raggedy Ann blanket, but I haven't ever really experienced such a strong recollection and emotional response to the physical things from home.

Susan has been here without a trip back a lot longer than I have. So has Nathan obviously. I can't imagine longer emotionally difficult separations like military deployment. I don't mean to be whiny. I know it could be worse. But bad is bad enough for me.