Homesick for ... here?

I wouldn't call my luck nor that of my fiance to be "good" luck. Au contraire, it's pretty bad. If there are 879 cars in a parking lot, ours will be the one to be broken into (it's happened. Like, three times). If there is a fire, we're the apartment right below it, paying for someone else's mistake with soggy carpet (yup). If there is West Nile viruses to be had, he swears he's had it. I doubt that last one. But for illustrative purposes ... he says he had West Nile.

But the point is, just when we think we're doing fine, Mother Nature sends a snowstorm. After three weeks of no snow. Ten minutes before we put the stuff in the car to drive what's supposed to be a seven-hour trip. In a state that, for some reason, doesn't have any snowplows. (OK, I'm pretty sure they have them ... but let's just say, for a state that's known for cold and snow and ... cold, there wasn't a plow to be seen.) It took 12 hours. Twelve. We left at 5. We got to my mom's at 6, Eastern time.

Sigh.

Then, the party. Woo. Hoo. Actually, it wasn't that bad.

Then, the drive back to Oshkosh. We decided, "hey, we'll never be closer," so instead of taking Route 30 all the way across Indiana ... sigh ... We took an hour-and-a-half drive to Toledo to surprise some friends and see some sights.

Campus was torn up and muddy. My old apartment looked just the same as when I left it when I left college - ugly. There was nothing fabulous about it at all.

We stopped by the newspaper where we worked. They were in a meeting. We called a friend of my fiance's. He was in Columbus, two hours away. We called my friend. She was working. We called my cousin. She was at her mom's. Another was in Toledo, but didn't check her voicemail and call us back until we were already in Indiana. Another friend was just waking up.

It didn't go as we'd planned.

We convinced the sleepy one to join us for lunch at my favorite place in the whole world to eat chicken wings (which is, of course, just in Toledo), and my fiance and I sat at a table and watched 27 TVs with nothing interesting on for a half hour until he showed up. It was nice.

Nice. But weird.

It used to be "our" place. Now it's just a place we used to go. The food was delectable. Now, the chicken wing leftovers I just ate are burning my sore throat and I'm pretty sure I'll get food poisoning, as they weren't kept refridgerated for the whole trip back to Wisconsin.

It was just so quiet. Twenty-seven TVs blared, and it was quiet. I was sad. I was tired. I was homesick while sitting where I want to be when I'm in Wisconsin. And it wasn't the same. It wasn't what I wanted.

But, on a good note, coming back was easier. I wanted my bed. I wanted my own hair dryer. My own towels. My own computer. Our own apartment. Our own empty cupboards. Because it's gotta be home. Because what I was missing isn't there anymore. It's gotta be here. Somewhere.