Our summer ramblings...and my ramblings about our ramblings

Oh the places we've called home this summer...starting I don't even know when, sometime this summer, we have been traveling here and there and back again...seriously, it has been positively wild-- just wild. Levi has been doing out rotations or audition rotations for his residency which will start next July. These rotations are basically 1 month long interviews. He has chosen to specialize in pediatrics-- and there are 4 different locations he can do his residency for the Army: Washington state, Hawaii, San Antonio, or Washington D.C. He got to choose two different places to audition (Washington State and San Antonio). While he was busy with those, I got to spend a lot of time in Hannibal with my family. My parents were gracious as always and had Jesse and me stay with them for quite a bit of the summer. So where exactly were we?

This really would be easier to write down in a list. 

Cape Girardeau-->Hannibal-->Washington State (4 day visit with Levi) -->Hannibal-->Cape Girardeau-->Hannibal-->San Antonio (2 week visit with Levi)-->Hannibal--> Cape Girardeau

I could add up the miles, but it is just as effective to say there were a lot traveled and a lot between Levi and me (and Jesse or course). We were on lots of airplanes and in the car a lot! 

A lot of the time we were gone, I felt very unsettled. I missed Levi, wanted to be with him, and felt like I was just spinning my wheels waiting for him. I missed my friends in Cape, but also wanted to make the most of the precious time I had with my family. Additionally, Levi and I got to visit a couple of the places we could be moving next year and we are just feeling settled in Cape. So of course in all of this, I got to think about what home means to me. 

What is home? Is it my house? or where my stuff is? my husband? my baby? my parents? where I lay my head? where I settle--even if it's a hotel room for a couple of weeks in San Antonio? or that vinyl chair in Terminal B with the lovely coffee smells of Starbucks drifting past? Or the seat I return to on the plane after changing a diaper on that questionably-safe-flip-down-changing-station? Yes, all those things and more! There are such cute quotes declaring Home is where ______(fill in the blank-- it seems it can mean almost anything). But it is hard to simplify it down to that level. My answer to the fill in the blank question is complicated, confusing, and contradicting. I'm pulled in many directions wanting to call home this or that. I have comforts that I enjoy now and again in different places, but a song I heard recently hit the nail on the head. Maybe it's not possible to simplify it down to one place in this life, but there is hope for that and that really makes me long for "home". Y'all listen to this song and tell me what is home for you?

Matthew West- The Reason for the World