I am home. Home being the place I reside, not always the place my heart resides. But in the absence of a place for it to rest elsewhere, it vacations here. This is not to say I am not completely happy here, but tonight at the supper table I am reminded that this is not my permanent place of rest. Aaron sits on my lap and says to mom, "She won't leave ever again right?" Mum replies, "Ask her." He looks at me, without voicing the question, his green eyes do the talking. Any time before I would answer in the negative. Of course I won't ever leave again. This is my home. Yet something is different. I know that I will leave again. I know that this isn't my home, my final heart's haven any longer. I say no. And he wonders why. But I can't answer him because I don't even know why.

In order, the first things I did when I came home this afternoon and discovered an empty house - Put Calvin Jones [solo pianist] Unchartered Waters on very loudly in the living room, made a pot of green tea, dusted and vacuumed the living room, dining room and kitchen, looked at recently developed pictures set on the table, made ziti's and sauce, and talked to Jax on the phone [twice =)]. I typically am tired after returning home from a trip, not today. Maybe tomorrow. Probably not. This tells me I am learning to cope with my homebody syndrome with a bit more maturity.

I still haven't taken my bags upstairs to my room.

I very briefly saw Danny on his way down to Watertown with his boss. He stopped in to see me and change his clothes before going down. I am intensely jealous of his curly hair. He is the only one who has inherited it from my maternal grandmother and now that he is growing his hair out it is becoming more and more obvious. I love it. I think, as he walks through the door, that I am more intensely proud of him than I am intensely jealous of him. This is a good thing. He, with his vivacious spirit and outgoing personality has always stood in the forefront and been the one sibling I wanted to be more like, and now I find, finally, that I am most pleased with him simply as my [big] little brother and no longer as my idolized competition. Relief. I love him.

Just got off the phone with D[ancia]. More relief. My dislike of phone conversations diminish when I talk to someone I love. Still ever grateful for familiarity.

Benjamin has turned into a little boy and no longer a little baby somewhere in the past few months. Perhaps it was the constancy in seeing him that kept me from seeing it, but now that I haven't seen him in so long and now finally coming to know him again it's glaringly obvious. He says uh-oh and ow, yes and no, please, not thank-you. He carried around a framed picture of Sarah and I for the past week mum said. He knows how to play jokes on me now and finds humor in things that previously escaped his intelligence. I love this age.