We are headed home for good in three weeks. I have thought about that first day in Maine in our home with our dog and neighbors so very much. Will it be peace that I feel? Elation? Exhaustion? Day after Christmas let down? What does this whole repatriation mean? I have been reading "The Art of Coming Home" about this topic and honestly it scares the heck out of me, so much that I had to stop reading it. Can it really be worse than the culture shock of our arrival two years ago?
And I have been thinking about the collective effect this trip has had on all of us. What if Vic and I have less in common because he is so sad to leave and I am pretty tickled to leave? Had we not ever gone, which I am not suggesting would be a good thing, perhaps we would be more on the same page. What about our real home is so distasteful to him? Is it any surprise that I take it personally and resent his criticism of our Maine life? That is our life, right?
What if Renata is right, that all of her friends have changed and she will have to start all over again in school and life here? Was that fair to make her go through that painful process twice? Will she remember this time as a great time or a terrible time, this almost home time?
And Luca who is incredibly happy to return to all that has been familiar and good in his life in Maine. What if his old life has also shifted slightly since he has left and it isn't what he wished for or imagined? Will he feel the same kind of betrayal that I suspect his sister does?
What if coming home to what was a wonderful life in Maine for so many years is no longer that? What if coming home is a solo trip for each of us? What then? How will we repatch together our life?
