Clicking my heels

This morning as I lay awake again (I haven't been able to sleep for more than 6 hours at a time in what seems like months, even though I am really tired), I was thinking about the meaning of home.

After I booked my ticket "home" in October or November, I became unbelievably excited about my trip back to Canada. My manager, who is also on assignment, but was born and raised in Poland, teased me several times about my use of the word home. He said that Krakow was my home now.

And he's partly right. If the old adage that home is where the heart is has any truth to it, my ticker must be shattered in several pieces and scattered across Canada, and now the world.

My first stop on this journey was Toronto, which has physically and emotionally been my home for the last 10 or 11 years. It's where my adult friends are, and where I really grew up - I got my first job in Toronto, bought my first house there - and where I thought I could happily spend the rest of my life.

Now I am in Alberta, where a large part of my heart still resides. My parents still live in the same house I grew up in, and when I fly into Alberta I almost always get choked up. Something about the patchwork fields always gets me, and I love the wide open spaces, even more so when they are covered in snow. It's funny, I never really noticed the landscape when I lived here, but now it is what I miss most.

But I am now starting to think of Krakow as home too. And in this Christmas season, I realize I am triply blessed to feel at home in so many places.

All the best to you and yours wherever you are at home this week.