The trip home wasn’t too bad
The trip home wasn’t too bad really. But it was the same as most holidays. Dad gets me from the airport, makes the usual small talk. How’s DC, how’s the car, how’s the job. Then we get home and have a semi-decent conversation about something which will lead him into asking me for computer help.
Then Mom gets from the store and is usually pretty worn out, but awake enough to want to talk for a while. It makes me wonder if she has anyone to talk to, ‘cos she really bends my ear. Not that I mind too much, but after a while I start to lose sight of what the point is.
The following day (Christmas eve) will be Mom going to the store for a 1/2 day, and Dad finding any reason not to go out and do the shopping that he hasn’t done while he looks around the for gifts he can re-package up and give to us Christmas morning. Sometime that day Jeff will get in, usually with laundry, and usually much later than he said he’d be. And it’s much when I first get in, except that he does all the talking while the parents try getting a word in edgewise.
Mostly going home is pretty boring. I don’t really consider it home anymore since I didn’t grow up in South Carolina and don’t know anyone there. Probably part of why its’ boring, I can’t call up anyone to hang out and talk about normal 30-middle-aged life-crap. So I felt like the central character in all those independent films about going “back home”. Not that I’m too sophisticated for my family, but it seems like they’ve all gotten to the point where they’re so old that they can’t allow their personalities to evolve at all. My gifts were well-recieved. I got some stuff I asked for, and some stuff that I wouldn’t have bothered asking for which I now have to find space for. And some money, which was nice and rare for me. (a lot of this morning was spent trying to figure out how I’m going to spend it.. so far no coherent ideas yet)
Thankfully there were no fights, that I know of. But still I leave home often wondering why I don’t make it a much tighter visit. Fly in Christmas Eve, fly out the next day. I’d have gotten more done staying home.
