We interrupt this year of service...

... for an epic bout with homesickness.

I travel a lot. My first sleepover away from home and my parents was when I was a toddler. I have not experienced much of this feeling in my life, so despite years of helping campers through it, I do not know how to handle myself right now.

Times in my life that I have, without a doubt, experienced homesickness:

•  Dad's "bad Wednesday" (heart attack) early in my sophomore year of college. I'd spoken to him and knew he was ok, and everyone else told me he was ok, but I needed to get back to NJ and see it for myself. After I went home for a long weekend visit, I felt much better, but still had little inklings of homesickness during the year, worried that I'd be far away when something bad happened to a loved one.
• The day I left for Arizona. Probably only because at that point, I didn't know when I was coming back. It didn't last long, because while I missed people, I also talked to them a lot. It also didn't last long because I just don't tend to get homesick.
• During/after Sandy. There was something deeply unsettling about watching my beloved home state suffer so badly and not being able to do a whole lot about it; also not really being able to talk about it with any sense of sadness or concern because I was the guardian of an 11 year old that week, who I didn't think needed to carry that weight.
• aaaaaaand that's about it, really, till today.

Today was admittedly not the best day ever to begin with, but the news from home... ugh. I am overwhelmed by the same feelings from right after Sandy. Just hurting while I watch places that I love fall apart.

This is just in April, right after I got back from Arizona--




I'm trying to flush out my feelings with words tonight, and it's just not working. It breaks my heart that the very breeze I went to enjoy before moving away from the NJ coast for a year, is causing such destruction of a place so recently put back together. Prayers for the safety of the first responders, and for a change in the weather tonight, and for the community. I miss you, NJ.