Homesick

I am homesick.

For where? Hmm. Well, that's complicated. I guess in a way, everywhere I've lived. Not that I'd necessarily live there again.

I'm homesick for strange things. Like the gas station by the grocery and hardware stores in my teenie-speck-on-the map hometown. That's a silly thing to be homesick for. If I had said that I missed the way the greens there are lusher and brighter than they are anywhere else, or the way the sun is brilliant and piercing, or the smell of clover and apples at my grandparents' farm, or the sound of spring peepers on warm spring and summer nights, or the crunchy-fried soft-crab sandwiches you can get at Captain Leonard's; that would have made more sense.

I miss those things too.

And I miss my family. My oft-nagging mom, my bear of a dad, my countless fiercely protective yet hopelessly goofy cousins, the aunts and uncles who stood in for my parents; buying me parakeets and ice cream.
I only really see them a couple times a year, now. And I do miss them terribly--with a quiet, burning ache that I squelch down as far as I possibly can. Because you see, this is the way it has to be.

In my head, I can always revisit the spring peepers. Not to mention the fireflies.