There's no place like home

There's no place like home

Why do I love going back home so much?

I get this question a lot, because our hometown is not what it used to be and I know that. 

But... There is something about home that no other place can do for me. When I get on the Palisades Parkway and I see the trees and then the mountains, I know I am home.

This soothes my soul, whatever I am going through, whatever anguish I am feeling just goes away. 

When I lost my first child, when I got separated, when anything good or bad happens in my life, the first place I want and need to be is home. It's magical being able to hike in the woods, to swim in the lakes, to raft down the Delaware River and see Bald Eagles fly free above your head. These are the things you cannot buy, the feelings of hanging out with people who have known you all your life and still love you, flaws and all.

Being able to laugh about things that happened to you in 5th grade, or high school and still be friends all these years later, for me is priceless.

Being able to still go to the pizza parlor we went to in high school or get warm bagels from the bagel bakery just brings back so many memories of growing up.

I forget how much I love home until I am there once again and it takes my breath away. Last year was the 1st time in 29 years I didn't go home because of covid.

I actually cried because I need to go home, I need that peace it gives me. You know what they say, you can take the girl out of New York but you can't take the New York out of the girl, that fits me perfectly. I will always be a New Yorker no matter how many years I live here in Florida.

And you can bet your ass if we had global warming tomorrow and New York didn't have cold or snow, that uhaul truck would be at my house and I'd be back in a heartbeat. Yes, that's how much I love home.

This summer I got to take some friends home with me, to show them what home means to me. It always makes me laugh as people think New York is just Manhattan or the Bronx and Brooklyn not realizing that it is so much more. The waterfalls, the lakes, the rivers, the mountains, the fresh air, the crisp cool nights around the firepit. These are the things I love about home and although I know it's not like it used to be, it will always be home to me.

So today my friends remember that we all have that happy place, that place where we are free to be ourselves. A place that soothes your soul and comforts you in your time of need. A place that could never be replaced with people that know and love you.

Sometimes that place isn't your hometown, it may be a place you found, a new place with new people and that's okay wherever that place is, if it makes you feel amazing that place is your home.

As Dorothy said "There's no place like home"

"Be the change you want to see"

@Treadmilltreats