There is an overwhelming weight that happens when I leave Wisconsin. Maybe it is because we are driving deeper into the humidity of the south, or are packed with all the gifts the grandmas have sent us off with – I am not sure what - but there is undeniably more heaviness. The amount of love I feel here, that deep love that you can only find in the halls of your childhood and the attics of your college years, is magnified, and consumed, and completely unforgettable. And then the time is up – and I have to save and conserve those intense feelings, for a year.
I am free here. I know the roads, the people, the food, and the neighborhoods. I don’t feel judged and questioned for using the word “bubbler”… or “ya know”. I have friends that can make me laugh hysterically with just one word. I don’t have to explain myself, or defend myself because the people here, know me. In fact, they are me, in a sense. But, that is what home is, right? A place where you feel comfortable and accepted. I do feel that feeling when I get back to North Carolina, in the confines of my house, in the pictures on my walls, in the laughs of my children, in friends. And yet, we all feel it, we all feel that little bit of love that is missing.
There is comfort leaving. There is comfort in knowing that there is a people in a place that I know I always have, and will always get me, and will always discuss the ridiculous meaning of life, Egyptian pyramids in Wisconsin lakes, semi-colons, and mis-pronounce words and names of actors and actresses. Yet, the heaviness doesn’t leave. It represents the amount of days left before I come back, the amount of nights I stay up late and try to recapture those feelings, and the amount of cheese and custard that I have consumed over the course of two weeks. I am proud to know this place, and proud to know these people. So, I guess, I am just sadder this time. And we all know how heavy that can feel.