lessons learned

I'm finally back ... THANK GOD!

I've never been more overjoyed to get back to my own home, to my own family, and especially back to my own bed!

The delirious homecoming I received from my dog was a perfect representation of how I was feeling when I opened that front door and walked inside.

And because there is SO much to process and possibly blog about, I've decided to do my usual bullet statement summaries of the more salient and memorable moments of my return home:

• To go home means to drink more (and I'm talking copious amounts of beer, wine, and frozen daiquiris!)
• There is absolutely NO way to romanticize or minimize the shittier aspects of your culture and heritage ... they're still shitty!
• I had to go into a smoke-filled, skanky bar to cash my mother's weekly work check: that's how the working poor do it down there.
• I think I've filled my second-hand smoking quota for six years.
• I've enlarged my carbon footprint times 25: where I'm from, you can't get from point A to point B in under 30 minutes, it just ain't possible.
• The kindest and nicest black people there are still treated like dirt (or less than dirt, like they don't even exist at all)
• Working poor rednecks are some obnoxious sons (and daughters) of bitches.
• Dealing with crazy relatives (especially during a death in the family) makes you want to drink until you fall down
• Never count on getting anything (and I mean ANYTHING) from said crazy relatives when it's time to divide up the dead relative's effects; those crazy people think all that miscellaneous shit is their due!
• I never counted on crying so much (and crying for some of the most unforeseen and emotionally rending reasons)
• The stupid adage "you can never go home" is bit too pertinent for me
• I'm constantly astounded by how much control I have and don't have over others ... and it really freaks me out!
• I'm never, ever more glad to have what I've got
• I need to practice a more consistent mantra of "I have everything I could ever want; my life is good!"

Well, that's all I got right now. I'm still trying to reenter back into my real life and all the acceptable craziness that that entails.

But stay posted ... I'm sure to do more processing of my trip home in the days to come.