Home.

Home. I’m torn as I think about this word; for it has two meanings for me. Home is San Diego, where I’ve spent the past 13 years (Sidenote: yikes I’m getting old). It’s where I’ve made friends that are family; where the streets are lined with palm trees (and also homeless people). It’s the ocean breeze on a warm winter day and a place where flip flops are worn year round.

But home also lies in a small town nestled in the foothills. A place where pine trees feather every roadside and hippies dot the landscape. Home is where people talk in grocery store lines and wave at each other in intersections; where you’re bound to run into someone you know at every marketplace.

It’s where my parents live, where old friends dwell. Where every building, sign, school bus stop, gas station, restaurant and avenue hold a memory. This place is full of memories.

Today I relish in the abundance of comfort; of two places so different and yet so dear. One sand, one dirt. Big and small, but both filled with the people I love most.