I wrote a post back in April of 2010 about going home:

Some days I wish you could go home again, back to the farm in Illinois.  The innocent days of playing in the old tree that was hit by lightning, cut up and piled up into what my brothers and I considered a fort.  We would play for hours in that old pile of wood.  Drinking the cold well water from the garden hose and eating cherry tomatoes out of my mom’s garden.  Sitting down at my grandmothers kitchen table to eat Schwann’s Butter Brickle Ice Cream or some Wacky Cake submerged in a glass of cold milk.

Or driving the John Deere tractor while sitting in my grandad’s lap on a crisp autumn day plowing the fields after the harvest.  All memories I think of when I hear this song by Miranda Lambert.  They say you can’t go home again, but you can if you close your eyes and remember.

Miranda Lambert had just released her new song “The House That Built Me” and it brought back a flood of memories growing up on a farm in Illinois.  I hadn’t heard the song in quite some time, but this weekend Shannon and I heard it on the radio and we had our usual conversation about how much we loved the song and how many memories it brought back.  What is odd, is I heard it again on the way to work today, and just now on the way back from getting a sandwich.

Not only that, but my mom posted the only known photo of our cut up tree fort on Facebook just the other day.

Maybe somebody is telling me it’s time to go home for a visit.  Been a long time since I went “home” for something other than an emergency or a holiday or anniversary.  A week eating my mom’s cooking and not answering emails until 2am every day sounds good about right now.

Note:  I consider Texas my home, have been here for my entire adult life and I get lost driving around “home”.  My kids are Texan, my newest grandchild is 6 miles down the road and my burial spot is picked out up on Bourland Road.  I wouldn’t move back “home” for all the tea in China, but I do miss my family after being away for nearly 30 years.