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It was a whirlwind but an enjoyable one. We arrived at home about an hour ago, having detoured through Raleigh to have dinner with my parents.
In short form: We drove to Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where we were staying. My mother-in-law came up to a restaurant there and we had dinner that evening. As a note - a sports bar/restaurant across the way from a Penn State Uni. campus on a Saturday night early in the fall semester? Not the best choice, but given the time...
Sunday we visited with her more and also with my sister-in-law and SIL's boyfriend at their house across town (it's a small town, so the distance was, perhaps, 1.5 miles.) It was a long but enjoyable night. Monday we picked-up MIL and went to a place she had been on a bus trip but wanted to visit again as she had too little time during that trip. It was Kitchen Kettle Village in Intercourse, PA (and, as I noted on other social media sites at that point, my inner twelve-year-old was dying as I attempted to be a good girl and not say anything as I'm pretty sure my MIL wouldn't have appreciated it.) We left there after dinner, around 6-7 P.M., and didn't stay long after we returned to MIL's house.
Today we drove back to North Carolina; a trip that took a little longer due to some traffic delays and sometimes heavy rain, and was a little later due to a late start. It didn't help that I was awoken at about 05:45 by a text message from my employer; a campus-wide message about severe thunderstorm and tornado watches in effect throughout the day (I understand my coworkers were huddled in the basement of the building for a time in the late morning.)
While there I came to understand in a personal way the phrase, "you can't go home again." I grew-up one county north of where we stayed, but for practical purposes, it was the region where I lived for 30-some years. And now it feels so very foreign. I'm not from there anymore and I never will be again. I don't believe it a place where I could feel comfortable, in part because I have those experiences there. I certainly didn't feel comfortable being in the slightest affectionate toward my wife while in public, e.g. a quick kiss or holding her hand.
NEPA isn't home; Durham is.
In short form: We drove to Hazleton, Pennsylvania, where we were staying. My mother-in-law came up to a restaurant there and we had dinner that evening. As a note - a sports bar/restaurant across the way from a Penn State Uni. campus on a Saturday night early in the fall semester? Not the best choice, but given the time...
Sunday we visited with her more and also with my sister-in-law and SIL's boyfriend at their house across town (it's a small town, so the distance was, perhaps, 1.5 miles.) It was a long but enjoyable night. Monday we picked-up MIL and went to a place she had been on a bus trip but wanted to visit again as she had too little time during that trip. It was Kitchen Kettle Village in Intercourse, PA (and, as I noted on other social media sites at that point, my inner twelve-year-old was dying as I attempted to be a good girl and not say anything as I'm pretty sure my MIL wouldn't have appreciated it.) We left there after dinner, around 6-7 P.M., and didn't stay long after we returned to MIL's house.
Today we drove back to North Carolina; a trip that took a little longer due to some traffic delays and sometimes heavy rain, and was a little later due to a late start. It didn't help that I was awoken at about 05:45 by a text message from my employer; a campus-wide message about severe thunderstorm and tornado watches in effect throughout the day (I understand my coworkers were huddled in the basement of the building for a time in the late morning.)
While there I came to understand in a personal way the phrase, "you can't go home again." I grew-up one county north of where we stayed, but for practical purposes, it was the region where I lived for 30-some years. And now it feels so very foreign. I'm not from there anymore and I never will be again. I don't believe it a place where I could feel comfortable, in part because I have those experiences there. I certainly didn't feel comfortable being in the slightest affectionate toward my wife while in public, e.g. a quick kiss or holding her hand.
NEPA isn't home; Durham is.
