Being home

November 9

Being home in October kind of had mixed feelings for me. It was great being at home in so many ways, seeing friends, seeing family. I got to go to Algonquin for a few days to experience the beautiful fall, canoeing and hiking. Of course the wedding and the baptism were highlights as was the weekend Up North and in Lindsay for Andrew Paul’s confirmation. I dropped in at school a few times to say hello and gloat. Spending time in St Catharines and getting to know Hannah was so good. And the week at Brigitte and Bruce’s felt restorative. It gave me a bit of alone time that I realized I needed. On the other hand, being at home was also hard. Sometimes it felt stressful and demanding. A few times I wished I hadn't come home. It was really hard not having my own place. Although I felt comfortable and welcome everywhere that I stayed, it wasn’t my own place. And it was harder to live out of a backpack at home than on the road. In some respects it would have been easier to stay away. I got sick. First with two lovely cold sores in time for baptism and wedding. After the sermon writing week I caught a nice cold. Being at Evan's and John's for dinner was lovely except for the Kleenex perpetually up my nose. I must have gone through a whole box of their tissues. Then this past week was bizarre too. As I was organizing trying to get my round the world ticket I realized that I was ready to go again, get back to my journey, it felt right but at the same time I was torn, primarily about leaving Hannah. The last few times I saw her I found myself in tears at the thought that I won’t see her now until she’s already a year old! She’ll have grown and developed so much in that time. Getting the Round the World ticket in itself was a frustrating exercise. The travel agents didn’t really know what they were doing and it turned out I wasn’t actually able to get the ticket at this point. I’m going to have to do that on my own through American Airlines and start the ticket in Europe. And since the plan is to end the trip in Europe anyway this works just as fine. That’s a project for the next couple of weeks!