looking for kansas

Life can be such a giver of gifts...
held in boxes of new beginnings,
colourfully wrapped in changing seasons.
I have been a recipient of such gifts,
and as I embark on these new adventures,
for the first time in my life I feel homesick...
a little displaced -
trying to find footing in my new surroundings.
I look around and I can't find Kansas,
let alone Toto!
I can't put my finger on the cause...
I mean, this isn't the first time I've relocated,
and it more than likely won't be my last,
but through a series of events I have realized I am a long way from "home".

Now home is not just the place that holds childhood memories of scraped knees and tattered jeans,
or the door you walk into to find coffee and cinnamon buns waiting for you.
To coin a cliche...it's where the heart is.
Where it beats comfortably.
Where it curls up on a couch and unwinds.
Where it exhales.

Sometimes home is a place with family,
but it can be amongst strangers that carry the feeling you've known them your whole life.
Home is a scent.
Songs.
The warmth of a familiar blanket.
The fit of a favourite jean.
It's the friend who knows when you need a coffee.
The pair of hands that see when you're desperate for a shoulder massage.
A book that you get lost in.
A coffee shop you find yourself in.

God has blessed my life with some amazing people and opportunities during my stint in the arctic. But despite my bravest and persistent of efforts, it still feels like a far off place to home.
Some of it has been my own doing...keeping each moment busy like only I can.
Some of it has been falling into the trap of comparisons - sizing up apples to oranges.
A chunk belongs to having unwritten dreams and goals for my life seemingly screech to a halt in the activity department.
Maybe it's unrealistic expectations for what is actually being accomplished.
Whatever it is, my heart has not found Kansas.
Not yet anyway.
Where does that leave me?
For now that means following the "yellow brick road"
and looking forward to whatever may lie just around the corner in this funny time of being in Oz,
glancing down at the ruby slippers with the faintest of hopes,
"there's no place like home"...