Home away from home

I just came across a new blog I liked. It's by someone not very dissimilar to myself. It's interesting how we can connect to someone we have never met and don't know anything more about than the thoughts they put "on the (electronic) paper". In any case, reading this blog made me nostalgic about my own blog. And made me feel a little guilty about how bad I have been about keeping up with it. So here we are.

Thanksgiving is coming up in two days. A lot of people came to class today with their suitcases, heading to the airport straight from school to head home. I suspect I will see even more people tomorrow with their suitcases, assuming anyone will go to class even. After class I met up with a friend who is a med student at Einstein and just had a baby, so she is taking the year off. I met the 5-months old cutie-pie, caught up with her Mom, then walked around the city in the rain.

I don't get homesick often; almost never to be very honest. New York feels like home, it has for many years and I don't long to be anywhere else. Of course, there are a lot of people I miss very much who live all over the world, literally. But that's the reality of life these days, especially for us emigrants. Around the holidays though, I do get homesick. This year, it seems to have just set in today. Like I said, it's not because I don't feel at home here and it's certainly not because people don't make feel at home. It's just a fact.

I usually travel to Kansas for Thanksgiving to see the dear family I once lived with when I was in high school, now more than 13!! years ago. Going there always feels closest to going Home, with a capital "H". But this year I have already used up my travel budget to go to El Salvador, Montreal, and then going home to Budapest for Christmas in a month! Plus there is a big vacation in the planning for next summer (more about that later, I hope). So that, with the ridiculously pricey plane tickets this year, I decided to stay put in NYC this week. Ultimately, I am looking forward to a quiet weekend without travel stress, much studying and all that. That was, until I realized that I had something planned already for every single day of the week. Not that I am complaining! Oh no no no! It's great! I love it! It's home!

Tomorrow night, I am going to Becky's parents' house in Brooklyn to make latkes for the first night of Hanukkah, then off to New Jersey to Kelsey's parents' house for turkey day, then plans with friends who are visiting from abroad or from up north, catching up with friends I never have time to see. Going through my to-do-list for the weekend, I realized, just now, that being far away from Home home just means that I have multiple homes: one here on 26th Street in Manhattan, another one in Brooklyn, in New Jersey, in Kansas, even in Ohio and in Budapest. It's not that bad, after all :)