Homebody vs. wanderlust.

Sometimes it's difficult for me to admit that I like staying/coming home.  Maybe it's because a lot of people talk about their big dreams and deep desires to travel to different countries and see the great wonders that the world has to offer in such a way that it would seem ludicrous to want anything less.

Don't get me wrong - if I had all the temporal and financial resources or won some chance to go overseas or cross national borders, I wouldn't easily pass up a chance to travel.

But no matter how much I want to deny it, I am definitely a big, fat, homebody at heart.  I'm actually really okay with not seeing the edges of the world or daring to take an adventure across a foreign land - not because I'm afraid to or want to stay within my comfort zone, but because I see how there can be so much to discover and learn right in my very neighborhood.  Even though it has its share of complicated issues and increasing tensions, I am like a tree that commits to digging its roots deep into the soil to discover new sources of water and nutrients once it is planted.  

I've talked about this concept of home and being on-the-move in following where God leads before, and it's still something I'm wrestling with and will be wrestling with for a while (who knows how long?).  At this point, it feels as though NYC will always been important and special to me, but it's a shell I seem to have outgrown for now.  And Binghamton is a nice place to return to, but knowing that it won't be where I'll be living in a few months from now has caused my roots to hesitate to dig deep.

Traveling like a madwoman this past week (and then some) wasn't too bad.  I had a lovely time in the mid-west, enjoyed the weather and my hotel bed and visiting my baby cousin in Cali - but when you're an introvert like me and have spent the last 10 straight days interacting with people after people, going from one place to another and another and another, there's only so much someone like me can take.

Sigh..I miss holding babies.  Thankfully, I got to play with two this week :]

Or maybe I really just miss having access to my giant bottle of Curel lotion when I travel.  Gotta have my moisturizer and if you want to travel light and not check in any luggage, it won't allow for anything bigger than a 3oz. bottle of lotion - which is simply insufficient for this lovely dry skin of mine!

In any case, there is so much to unpack from my adventures - from my mind, that is.  Now that the physical unpacking has completed, the  mental and emotional unpacking has only just begun.