Home Leave

I should know better; it’s always the same. I leave giddy with anticipation and extravagant plans of how to spend those two precious weeks at home: skiing every day, eating home-cooked feasts every night, finally sorting through my crap packed haphazardly in my parents basement, working out the little quirks of my old Land Cruiser that have been irking me since the last trip home, flying out west to visit some friends who couldn’t make it home for Christmas, and of course, saving the last, dwindling days to do absolutely nothing. Oh yes, and working in the time for the stuff I need to do to stay in good favor with VT and the US of A.

Perfect.

It’s day one and I wake up feeling fresh, the excitement of being home delaying the onset of about 8000 miles of jet lag. I spend the day getting reacquainted with the smells and reveling in the novelty of being home. I wake up on day two feeling like I never left only it’s 3am and I can’t fall back asleep and the rest of the day passes in a blur of narcolepsy narrowly averted by an 18 hour coffee binge. Day three, the jet lag starts to subside except it’s actually day 13, I’ve done none of things I said I would do and before I can figure what the hell happened, I’m back on a plane.

Though, despite the cursory attempt at the to-do list and all of the plans that just didn’t work out, I don’t leave feeling frustrated or regretful and it’s always the small things overlooked in anticipation that makes the trip so special: the cold nose and lick on the cheek from the dog waking me up in the morning, the frozen-pizza family dinners when we realize we’d much rather catch up in front of the fireplace than over the stove, the impromptu visits or phone calls with friends where the discussion just picks up where it left off undeterred by the fact that we haven’t talked in 6 months, and realizing again that doing nothing is never as good as it sounds.