There's No Place Like Home ...

Imagine my surprise ... last week ... on my last run-through before Thanksgiving at the local, family-owned grocery store near my house. I rounded the corner of the produce aisle &  found a display of peanuts.
Not just ANY peanuts ... Jimbo's Jumbos peanuts !!!

Yes, indeed.  I bought some.  Just because .... yeah ... just because.

Those peanuts were the catalyst for a lot of soul-searching ... and scab picking ... throughout the rest of the week. You know sometimes, you just rip the band-aid off ... flake the crusty scab ... and realize that that wound you've been worrying over for so long has actually healed ... on it's own ... without you even knowing it ...

... and THAT's something to be thankful for ...

Jimbo's Jumbos.  Finding those peanuts whisked me back to a Thanksgiving a long, long time ago ... in a far away land ...  when I was a young, idealistic woman ... with goals & dreams ... learning to be bold ... confident ... independent ... determined ...

... to take on the world ... to make a difference ... with my smiles ...

Yes.  That was me.  I found it written exactly that way ... on a To Do list  ... stuck in an old journal that I ran across recently while turning my house upside down.

It caught me off-guard ... stunned that I didn't remember ... something as important as that.

"Success" & all its trappings were all over that list,  I must admit ...

Success was defined differently by me then ... much different from how I see it today...

That Thanksgiving was the very first one I ever spent away from home.  I had moved to Edenton, North Carolina earlier in the year.  It was a long way from Edenton to Little Rock.  So I had decided to make the trip home at Christmas ... not Thanksgiving.

Even though I had been on my own for a few holiday seasons before that Thanksgiving ... living in Dallas ... getting home really hadn't ever been a problem ...

This was my first taste of REAL LIFE interferring with my being where I wanted to be  ... when I wanted to be there.  It was killing me.

Oh yeah.  About the peanuts.  Jimbo's Jumbos come from Edenton, NC.  It is one of the primary businesses in that sleepy little town ... full of history ... colonial history, peanut history & MY history ...

I wasn't the only one having a problem with the whole Thanksgiving thing.  My mom & my grandmother, Mimi, weren't too happy about the thought of an MJless turkey  day either.  So they loaded up the truck and headed to ... well, actually they flew into Raleigh ... but you get the picture.

... funny, I am sure that I knew at the time ... but I honestly don't remember what the rest of the family did for Thanksgiving that year ...

So that's how it happened ... that I learned how to cook a turkey & all of the fixins'  in my very own kitchen ... the way Mimi always did it ... on that first grown-up Thanksgiving ...

Edenton, North Carolina.  Home of the Jimbo's Jumbos.  Changed. My. Life.

A couple of years later ... there was that Christmas ... in Virginia Beach.  One of the most miserable Christmas' ever.  No real family.  No real friends. 

Lonely.  Lonely. 

And again, I couldn't go home.  It was just too far.  Twice that fall I had traveled back .. to say farewell to my father ... in real life ... in after life.

We were a struggling young couple ... with jobs that required a lot of time & didn't pay so much ... with a child on the way ...

Money was tight.  It simply wasn't possible.

Bottomline ... it wasn't going to be Christmas for me ... since I couldn't be at home ... with my Mimi ... and my Mom ... and my family ...

I was 20-something ... all grown up ... with a husband ... and the little girl in me was longing to go home ... for Christmas ... life was pretty lousy ... at 20-something.

Home.  Where I was safe & secure.  Always welcome.  And loved unconditionally.  That place that I could always run back to ... to tag up ... to regroup ... recharge ... before heading out again ... to search for those really important things in life ...

So I clicked my ruby slippers ... over and over again. 

"There's no place like home.  There's no place like home.  There's no place like home. There's no place like home."

Then early in December, the phone rang.  It was Mimi.

"Little darling ... do you want to come home for Christmas? "  "Yes, Mimi.  I do.  More than anything."  "I will make it happen."

And she did.  A small check in the mail ... that gave me the gift that money couldn't buy ... long before "priceless" became the buzz word for such things.

I can still hear her voice.  Today.  Nobody ever called me "Little Darling" ... nobody except for her.

There's no place like home.

The years went by.  No matter where I was Mimi always came to see me.  My Mom did, too.  And no matter what ... I always came back ... here  ... from whereever I was living ... because in my mind ... it was this place ... that was home.

It was just the way we loved ... each other .. in my family. 

Later, after Mimi left us ... things changed.  I still came back ... year after year ... even when the road ran one way ... because it was ... home ...

Except that it no longer felt that way ... at least not the way I remembered it.

I miss Mimi.  She always made me feel like it was all about me ... of course, I think I knew all along that it was really all about her ... either way ... it doesn't matter ... it felt good  ... plain & simple ... she loved me ... no matter what ...

There's no place like home.

So maybe it really wasn't the way we loved ... each other ... in my family.

Maybe it was simply the way SHE loved ... me.

I don't know.

It's going to be Christmas soon.  And my daughter will be coming to my house ... a place that will never feel like home to her.  Home ... to Abbi ... will always have an ocean view.

That's ok.  I get it. Honest.  I do.  It's all good.

And we will all go to my mother's house ... and we will enjoy being there ... with her ... at her house ... still it won't be the same ... as it was ... when it was home.

It's sad ... really.  How things change.  How they stay the same.

There's no place like home.

It's a special kind of love that transcends families ... where fresh starts abound ... and even though forgiveness isn't always easy it wins out in the end every time ... where nothing is ever more important than the relationships ... all the wrongs ... all the hurts ... while not forgotten are somehow gotten past ... because there's nothing more important ... than HOME.

Somehow home got lost along the way.  Or maybe it just wasn't as important to anyone else ... as it was to me. 

I have always tried to recapture that feeling  ... of home ... to serve it up ... at my house ... whereever that house was.  To open my heart ... to offer that unconditional love  ... To my family.  To my friends.

Somehow I thought if they could feel it ... than so would I ... yeah ... than so would I.

I have always wanted Abbi & Jessi to be wrapped up in that same kind of love that gave me the confidence ... to boldly go ... over the rainbow ... out-of-bounds ... to follow my dreams ... even when they turned out to be something less than I imagined.

And season-after-season ... I traveled back ... trying desperately to find ... my way ... home ...

You know ... right where I left it ... in a place where we had phone numbers ... not digits ... or contact lists ... phone numbers that started with prefixes like "FRanklin" and "MOhawk" ...

There's no place like home.

And there I was ... on Thanksgiving ... in a house ... in another place ... that always takes me back ...

Just me ... good friends  ... and that silly bag of  Jimbo's Jumbos.

And it came to me ... early one morning ... as the fog rolled across the lake ...

Maybe it's not really the way we loved ... each other ...  in my family.  And maybe it really wasn't simply the way Mimi loved ... me.  Either.

Maybe it's been ME all along.  Loving others the way I wanted to be loved.

I don't know. 

All I know is that going home is the journey I have been on ... for all of my adult life ... trying to find my way ... to that cozy, comfy place.  And all the roads that seem to have led me to nowhere ... are bringing me closer ... to where I want to be ... I am almost there ... I can feel it ...

Follow the yellow brick road ... FOLLOW the yellow brick road ... follow the yellow brick ROAD ...

Jessi gets it.  Home is whereever she feels safe ... accepted ... and loved.

It's as simple as that. 

So, yeah ... I ripped off that band-aid ... to find a wound that had healed ... all on it's own.  There's a still a little scar ... and that's ok ... cuz it really doesn't hurt .. not anymore.

Home doesn't always have an ocean view.  And it isn't always found in Little Rock ... even though that's where I thought I left it. 

And Jimbo's Jumbos still taste great ... we didn't find a bad nut in the bag.

And on Christmas morning ... we will all go to my mother's house ... the house that I used to think was home ... and maybe ... Santa will have a little extra Christmas magic ... there in his bag ... when he stops by ...

And as we share the traditional pound cake & coffee ..

Maybe ... just maybe ... we will ALL feel it ...

... the way we used to love ... each other .. in my family ...

Home.  It's that place where you find that all that really matters ... is what is found right there.  Home is ... plain & simply ... where the love is.

Now THAT would be a very Merry Christmas ... at least it would be ... for me.

There's no place like home.

http://www.lifelessons-mj.blogspot.com/
(c) November 2010