Homesick

Even though I am heading on a fast train to age 49, I still often feel like a teenager and my parents are just at work and I will see them when they get home. The home I grew up in. Yet I have been without my parents for over ten years (15 for Dad) and it never feels like more than a few days. Weeks maybe.

I am homesick for the simple routine, my mom's home cooking, my dad mowing the lawn on Friday afternoon. After school time was free play, in the yard or rollerskating around the driveway, and on days mom worked, after dinner I would watch Andy Griffith in my bedroom. Homesick for someone else to call the shots, make the decisions, to take care of... well, everything.

Homesick for rides in the car where I didn't have to drive. Snow I didn't have to shovel. But also homesick for the help I willingly gave to Dad when he tended the garden, or in his garage, or every Saturday morning with Mom and a dust rag and the vacuum cleaner.

Homesick for the miniature schnauzer, Jenny, we got when I was about 9, and my pet rabbit, Surprise. Not so much for the chihuahua named Checkers that clearly didn't like small children but adored Mom.

Homesick for my grandmother who lived with us my entire life until she passed away when I was 13. She spoiled me and that was wonderful.

Homesick for the friends who lived next door and on the corner, who I wonder about today. Homesick for the summertime and dirty feet and playing hide and seek in our front yards. Riding bikes and running around, free but still safe under the eyes of everyone's parents. For the boy who lived a block over that I made out with (I was 14), NOT under anyone's watchful eye!

Homesick for my room and the blue flowered wallpaper that mom picked out, even though blue was not my favorite color and I was 10. Homesick for my radio and my notebook where I wrote all those poems and doodles and even a few stories. For the Nikon camera that I wanted so badly and received for Christmas, and took a million photos. Homesick for the telephone I got, just for my room, and the "one hour only" and the "not after 8:00 pm" rules that Dad imposed. Homesick for the silence that was our home.