There and Back Again

There's an hour to kill before our ride comes to take us to LAX.  I arrived in SoCal on Wednesday afternoon and am leaving again tonight.

It's a real blessing to be 30 years old and to be able to come home to the house in which you grew up.

Although, a large part of this trip was also to visit the newly purchased home in which my parents hope to grow old.

In between shuttling between the two locations, old and new, I watched my brother graduate from my alma mater with an Master of Public Policy and got to see family, neighbors, and 3 friends--the smallest amount of catching up I've ever done on a trip home.

Last night, Mom and I visited our neighbor Jan and her cousin Christine.  We four ladies raised our champagne glasses (mimosas, anyone?) to toast to life, friendship, graduation, and retirement.  I didn't take a picture, but that scene will be forever embedded in my mind.

This morning, I drove for several miles down Fair Oaks, a major street in Pasadena.  I passed by Huntington Hospital, where Jan's husband passed away in December of 2014.  My family was there the day before he died, and he kissed us each on the forehead before we said goodbye.

Huntington Hospital is also where I had my cystectomy in February of 2013, right before being maid of honor in my friend Jamie's wedding.  This afternoon, I saw that her for the first time in 2 years and met her 20-month son--the product of that marriage.

My final destination was 711 S. Fair Oaks, an El Pollo Loco in a regular corner strip mall where my friend Joyce agreed to meet me for her lunch break.  Turns out she works in 625 S. Fair Oaks, the same building that housed my first job out of school--the office of Mission Hospice.  It's been 6 years since I left, and I will forever be grateful for the invitation to start a music therapy program there.

Things have a way of coming full circle, don't they?

This afternoon, three of us girlfriends, along with Jamie's son, had a picnic in Wilderness Park, just up the street from my home and the site of many a childhood memory with my family.

I've been away from home for a while now, but I still feel grounded whenever I come back.  

I don't know when the next visit will be.  It depends on jobs, living, and relationships on the East Coast.

'Till next time, then.  There's no place like home.