Do you ever get homesick, or have an ache for a certain place? Only, it’s not an ache for that place necessarily, just how that place was at a specific time?

Tomorrow is the end of a ten day trip to a place I call home; Small town USA, if you will. Most times after trips like these, I’m excited to return to wherever it is I’m currently living. But it’s just something about this time in particular that makes me feel quite the opposite.

I’ve spent the last ten days reconnecting and visiting with people who have all had/made some contribution to who I am now. Some, I hadn’t seen in years, and others, only months; some, of course, awkward, and others, just made me so happy.

While visiting one in particular, it was said, “Who knew after 12 years of knowing each other, and everything in between, we’d be sitting here with each other right now.” It would been months since we’d seen each other, but catching up and discussing life -- it was like those months didn’t happen, nothing had changed.

Another one, one I see every time I’m home, one of my last nights here, we sat on her couch, talking about everything under the sun, laughing uncontrollably; and it was like all of those days we spent on that couch, years ago when this place was my home.

It’s not necessarily the house I grew up in or a certain old road that I’ll miss when I leave here, it’s the conversations in that house, the memories of all the late nights flying down that road, the nights with old friends, and how we were in those moments, that I’ll miss.