The Trip Home

As you might gather from the photo, this past week I went home for the first time for my sister’s wedding. It had been nearly eight months since I had left for Panama. A lot had changed over that time. There is a new president. The price of gas dropped by about a half*. The stock market tanked. Unemployment is at record highs. My friend Chris is a college graduate. Friends had bought houses and had new girlfriends. And so on.

(*As I was driving my sister’s car back to her house so I could catch my plane back, I noticed the car was low on gas. Used to $4 dollar a gallon gas, I was thinking it was going to be costly to fill up. Therefore, I set my spending limit at 25 bucks. Whatta nice brother, right? Well to my surprise, it only took 21 bucks to fill up. So, in the end, my sister got a full tank of gas.)

But it seemed the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. My brother-in-law was his normal quirky self. My old office remained a great place with great people. My mom still loved to wait on her son hand and foot. Morgantown was still a fun place at night and my buddy Boff still liked to drink. Most importantly, my family still knew how to have fun.

The family and fun were the best parts of the trip and it all came together at the wedding. It was a great event put together by some fantastic work. Everything fell into place. My sister looked beautiful in her wedding dress. My grandfather tore up the dance floor. And a great time was had by all.


The one downer of the trip was the cold weather. Shocking, since I have lived in 85 degree and sunny weather for the past four months. It culminated when I woke up to snow on Tuesday. Snow. In April. No thanks.

It was only fitting that with each stop back down south, I removed a layer of clothing. Now as I type in the cool evening wearing a basketball jersey, I can look back and laugh at the thought of snow.

In that regards, it’s good to be back ‘home’.