In the past several years, my sense of home has become far more based in relationships than where I happen to find myself living. And the more I move around, the more important those relationships become to me. The beauty in this is that I can move virtually anywhere in the US (or world for that matter) and have someone I know within a reasonable distance.
However, as I have pondered over things, it has hit me just how much I miss being near my family and friends who have been with me the longest. The majority of my family and friends live in the Midwest - the very place I am most often homesick for. And though I know I will not move back to Iowa, my heart continually tugs at the rest of me to head west.
Tonight I sat looking through pictures of my three new second cousins, my niece, my "other niece", and I can't help but be a bit sad at all I am missing by being so far away. It gnaws on me each and every day. And though there are great things here that I know I would miss, I wonder if it would be outweighed by being near again to those I love so dearly.
I feel entirely unfit for living in the Northeast. It exhausts me to live here, but I am learning. God has provided people who are like family to me here. But they can never take the place of my actual family.
So I wonder when it will be time to go home. I wonder if it will ever be time to go back home. I wonder if being closer to those in my heart would take away this desire to roam. I wonder if I am one of those constant wanderers who will never be completely happy because something is always missing. I wonder what it would be like to see my family more than a few times a year.
And though I'm not making any moves right now, it looms in my heart for the near future - an ever growing question mark that I long to see an answer to.
The ache of my heart? I miss my family - and friends who are family to me. I am tired of being so far away.