As familiar and comfortable as that old sweatshirt Sass is wearing

I admit that when I'm away I suffer homesickness - something I never was afflicted with in childhood at camp or sleepovers, but as an adult I've somehow made up for it tenfold. So while I was happily traipsing about on the other side of the Atlantic, there still was a part of me that yearned for the comfort of sunrises and routines familiar.

It's more than sleeping in my own bed again or having coffee that doesn't involve room service or my remembering to say, for take away, so that I get it in a to-go cup and not a heavy mug. It's more than recognizing the money in my wallet or knowing how to dial a local number. When you're a foreigner, things are just that: foreign.

This morning, as I walked through the park, the sun stretched through the trees in pink, orange and white-yellow, and Cheyenne scampered across frost-covered grass after the squirrels, I breathed deep and thought to myself, it's good to be home. These are my streets, that's my neighbor, over there is my corner store. It's just a neighborhood like any other, but it's my neighborhood. There's the pile of laundry that needs to be washed, and a stack of mail that I need to go through. Mundane household chores that aren't a chore this time. In my heart, this is a reunion and I embrace it all. It's the comfort of home and the familiarity of where my life lives. No matter where I go or how long I am gone, whenever I return home, there's always a new shine on the old, the familiar, the routine.