home coming

have you ever been so far away from it for so long that you catch
yourself listening for a whisper in the wind that tells you you're
home?

i'm not talking about home in a physical sense, where i am, where i
kick my shoes off, sit back, and put my feet up. i'm talking about a
sense of self, of being comfortable in my own skin, of understanding
my place, the part i am to play. i tell myself i know my place, that
i understand my reason for being. that is to be the best father to my
children that i can possibly, and i throw everything i have at being
that man. still, i constantly struggle within myself, to be more, to
be a better man, to be thinner, to be kinder, to be more.

i battle constantly, not just myself, but outside forces trying to
push a life onto me that i do not want, situations i want no part of.
i battle to the point of begging for a little peace. other people seem
to have found peace in their lives. why not me? i do not know the
answer to that. i begin to suspect, though, that perhaps men like me
never find peace.

i have never found that magic spot. i've never found that place within
myself i could call home. everywhere is strange and hostile, and i am
always a stranger walking through the shadows of a mysterious and
foreign landscape.

i am still searching though. i still put my ear to the gentle wind and
listen for the whisper the wind carries. i think it would help if i
knew what i was looking for. it is beyond my ability to express just
what i feel i'm lacking. some things are like that, that you can't say
what you're minus simply because you don't have it. the vocabulary is
not there when the thing you're trying to describe is absent from your
every sense.

i wonder, too, if perhaps i am waiting for home to come to me while
home is waiting for me to come to it. perhaps it's only a mindset, a
way of thinking, of looking at life that keeps me from finding the
peace i desire. i wonder if maybe home is that special place in your
heart you reserve for the familiar things in your life, the things you
love and cherish above all others. if that is the case, then i have
more than i need in my children and their laughter. if that is the
case, then i am merely being greedy.

ghost