For the last decade or so, whenever someone asked where I was going [on a trip], I would reply "home." That evolved the last five years to "home to Virginia" to highlight the fact that I had two homes. Knoxville became my home in so many ways. We had close friends there, careers, we were beginning to put down some roots. We brought two babies "home" there.
But one can never truly sever the ties to their hometown. This is the only home Kirk can remember and likely it will be the only one that Whit and Eilidh know. Although I can remember many places that I've lived, this is the only one that ever truly seemed like home to me. Our roots run deep here and I suppose they always will.
Anytime Kirk and I would come back to this place it was as if time slowed down and we could breath more deeply. Our five years in Knoxville flew by and the one year we spent in northern Virginia the first year we were married was the blink of an eye.
I've been "home" for less than a month and there are some times when it seems I never left. The fact that our furniture still sits in a house in Knoxville is about the only thing making our time there tangible. Surprisingly, the feeling I always had while on vacation here hasn't left me. I would say that it has something to do with me being home with the kids, but I experienced that in Knoxville both last summer and after Eilidh was born. It just isn't the same. There's something to be said for country life; there just seems to be more here. Far fewer things, places and people, to be sure, but more space, more time, more.... living.
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