at home

 Back at home after a sorrow filled trip. Now to get back to the normal routine. It's a comfort. We often complain about the "same old thing", but we all miss that same old thing too. It's strange because I often find myself talking about making a change. I think I'd like to buy a house or move to another location. But I realize that I would also like to take home with me. That's the way of things. When we move to a new location, we often start trying to change that location to be more like where we just moved from. It's really quite an obvious thing if you are paying attention. 

 The most glaring of examples of that are those folks that move to the "burbs" or to the "country." No sooner are they there than they start looking for everything that the city had to offer. Entertainment and restaurants top the list. That will be followed by shopping! It was shopping centers or malls, but that is changing too. I'm guessing with the online shopping and next day delivery that need has been reduced. Perhaps going to the shopping center or mall will once again become an outing, like it was back in the early days. I can remember as a kid being excited to go to the department store! Yes, it was a drive of twenty miles, but that store had everything! You didn't want to go there every day, the drive and the crowds were a bit much, but it was an event to do so. Dad would take the family on a Friday night. I've never ordered groceries online but see others doing that. Some order ahead and do the pick-up thing at Walmart, while others have those groceries delivered. I have no desire to do that at all. In my experience all products, think produce especially, look much better in the pictures.  My thinking is that Walmart employee doing my shopping for me isn't examining the products very carefully. I'm thinking they are simply matching that barcode to a product and tossing it into the bin. Just a day's work in a mundane job. It isn't about service, it's about profits. 

 There is that old saying you don't know what you had till it's gone. That's the truth of the matter. We do tend to take things for granted, getting bored with the same old thing. There are times however when we are reminded, and we want to change things back. Then we are sad because we can't do that. But we do come to understand that the things that matter the most to us never really change. It makes little difference where we are physically located. The memories remain, and reminders will be found everywhere. In the end, it is the same old thing that we crave the most. Being home.   “I have to see a thing a thousand times before I see it once.” (Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again) My thought is you can't go back to a place you never left.