Home Sweet Home, Sweet Home, I'm Home!

Yeah... I'm back in Olds, in case the title didn't sufficiently give it away. And I'm pretty happy about it. Looking back on the last two posts here, I appear to have a mental undercurrent of pondering human relationships and appearances going on, but we'll have to forgo another boring round of that, since I'm too busy gushing about being home.

It's been Christmas season up in Edmonton for ages, depending on where you go shopping. The Seminary's been decked out in decorations for a week or two, Advent masses have been the norm since, well, Advent started (that would be December 3rd this year). There's been no lack of Christmas-y stuff going on...

But it didn't feel like Christmas till Saturday afternoon, when I got home about three hours after my last exam (Intro to Philosophy, a pushover). It was a long, stressful drive, what with the first hour out of Edmonton having to worry about icy roads. I swear that there were probably 40 or more cars in the ditch, at that time, in the first half hour or so out of the city. And there was the whole "took entirely too long" episode in Red Deer of trying to get into a parking lot so that I could by washer fluid for my car. Have you ever driven for two hours, into the sun, with a streaked windshield? If you have, you know it's stressful. Anyway, the point is that I was happy to get home, Christmas holidays or no Christmas holidays.

But it IS good to be home. And home isn't just my family and our house, it's the whole town, and all the familiar people in it. Olds is small enough and I lived here long enough (as in, all life long) to know it backwards and forwards. Going to Mass Sunday morning was pretty much heaven on earth... being back in the familiar building, with the familiar people, with the familiar priest, with the familiar music, with the familiar vestments and vessels, with the familiar cars in the parking lot. (Coming back as something of a celebrity doesn't hurt the feel-good feeling, but it's something I could have done without.)

Certainly, some things change. Four months is long enough that there are new people in town, new cars in the parking lot, renovations to the Church, kids looking so much older. But unlike a couple of my siblings (who I will have mercy on and not name), I'm not opposed to change. Organic changes like these, and the fact that I notice them all, simply highlights my seperation from Olds, and consequently how good it feels to be back.

And yet... and yet... I'll be ready to go home come January.