Home Again

I'm back to my "old" haunts this week, although I do have a few posts from Donegal to share in the coming days, and old is a relative term. Thomas and I had a relaxing evening the other night; our first night back in our little gatehouse and we re-watched the film Brooklyn. I really enjoy that film and it always hits me in the gut every time because although it's in reverse and decades apart, Eilis's story is my story. I've moved across the ocean and left a family and sisters behind. Mine were just visiting and I get to see them at least once a year, and there's phones and Skype these days, modern advancements that take the edge off the distance, but there is still distance. If you get very lucky you get a new family that adopts you in your new country, you build friendships and start putting down roots, but even with all that I wonder sometimes when a house becomes a home. We've been living here for two years now which is pretty good for me since before and after college I was hopping around quite a bit. Once four years have passed, it will be the longest I have ever consecutively lived in one place...but perhaps I shouldn't count my chickens just yet--I'm only halfway to that mark! But like one of the lovely lines in Brooklyn where Eilis describes the passing of homesickness, one day you're a lonely and maybe a bit uncomfortable in this new place and then somehow inexplicably the sun comes out and in the next moment you're ok. Your house has become a home. The paths out your front door feel familiar as if you have walked them a hundred times and maybe, by this time, you have...