I sat in the terminal watching my plane get a deicing shower, the younger, fatter boy sitting next to me. I check out all the guys now that I'm feeling fitter and trimmer. Our arms share the rest, as the the holidays have filled the port with folks running back from here and there, presents in hand, bluetooth attached to the ear. We're so connected in our disconnect. I pray there is no layover. The boy chats on his phone and I don't really hear him until he starts to whisper. I feel my ears perk and my head move slightly towards his direction. The book in my lap become an incoherent mess of nouns and verbs. Blah! Blah! Blah! What's he saying?

"I'm sad, mom. I'll miss you, mom. I don't want to go back, mom."

These are foreign sentiments to me. My saddness reflects in that of my mom's. Missing isn't much in the cards for the pain she's caused. And I was more than ready to be back. So I clicked my heals, looked at my wife and whispered in her ear.

"There's no place like home."

The visit back to where I played t-ball and spent my summer swimming miles in the community pool was not horrible. I enjoyed it, in fact, thinking that it could be home again. The city, it's offerings... it could be mine. The pro-hockey, the season tickets to the college games, the drinking with dad. I could fit here, find my way, make a life.

But my cats are chasing tail in our little apartment and there are friends there, near the ocean, that are like family. I feel some drifting away and I recognized no one is to blame. Placing blame is not important. What is is that I miss them, even though I'm home, here, today. And since this writing took this turn, I allow myself to hope. Hope we'll find a way back to that place, that place when I was younger and fatter.