Coming Home

I’m at a crossroads.  I don’t know if I’m on an extended/unending

vacation or if I want to have a permanent home base that I can rent out when I’m traveling.  My past experiences with that have not been so great.  I would love to have one place I call home and when I feel like packing up and going away for a few months at a time I can.  The only problem is, every time I think about returning, I question what/who/where am I returning to?

Recently, a phone call almost had me packing up and planning to return.  I was online for three hours looking up flights.   Our last paid-for location is Athens, Greece.  I mean, that one phone call almost made me change all of my plans.   I found flights to New York for $340 and from NY to MN for $130.  I’m happy I went to sleep before making that purchase.  I’m trying not to let anyone or anything influence the next year of my life but it’s been difficult.  When I want to be around familiar people I think about going home but then I watch the news and I don’t want to come back at all.  Then I might hear from someone and think about returning but then I realize I just need a stronger block game.

The biggest problem I have is determining where home will be.  The majority of the people I care about are in Minnesota but I was starting to build in Georgia.  If I were wealthy, I’d keep and apartment in Minnesota for the summer and a house in Atlanta for the rest of the year.  I also want to live somewhere safe.  Currently, we are in Germany, and there’s a park across the street from the AirBnB we’re staying at.  We’ve gone there several times and it’s always full of children and parents.  Yesterday, my daughter asked if she could go to the park by herself.  I know she doesn’t want to sit in the house while I’m working and if it were quieter at the park I’d be able to work there while she’s playing.

When I bought my first house there was a park three two blocks away but after a drive by and all types of nonsense we had to walk eight block to a safer park.  When we were in Georgia I could take my daughter to the park with no problems.  I let her play in the yard and across the street with the neighborhood children without and fear.  The one thing she has continuously asked about while we’ve been traveling is if she can if she can walk somewhere by herself.  She knows when I was younger my siblings and I walked or biked to the park, to school, the corner store, and just about everywhere else, by ourselves.  So, I gave in and I said yes.  After all, I can see the park from the bedroom window and my child is so loud I could hear her all the way across the street.

I let her know what the rules where and that she only had one chance to break them and she’d be stuck in the house or the backyard, with no playmates, until I was done working.  She took her cell phone.  I set the timer for 20 minutes, ran the rules down again, and let her enjoy some time at the park – unsupervised.  After the 20 minutes had passed she came running to the window to check in.  I didn’t feel anxious or worried even though she was by herself.  Not only was she by herself, but she was by herself and doesn’t speak a word of Deutsch.  My daughter, being who she, is came back to tell me all about her new friend, Paula, and the promise that she made to be back today at 5:00.

Even though I am back into a regular routine I see the one thing that has been missing is safety.  So, when I do come back I know that wherever it is I have to be able to feel safe.  I want to be able to let my daughter go to the park and play.  I don’t want to have to worry and feel like if she is out of my eyesight she’ll be in danger.  I want her to be able to have the same freedom I did as a child.  That’s all.