Prepping for the return to England

Leaving Court Square Tavern meant I could actually imagine a trip to England. One less thing to cover, one less item to figure out. Now, I'm working out the details of how to get there. I'm sad as I type this because I'm adding the schedule into Google Calendar, and I'm typing in the details of how I will get back home.

And this makes me sad already because on some level I don't want to come back home. I love Charlottesville and don't think I would want to be anywhere else in the United States. I have a home here, in part because it reminds me a lot of England, and reminds me a lot of what I think is best about the United States, as well as the challenges that face us as a community.

But for the next month, I'll be preparing for this trip. It has been four and a half years since I've been to England. I've not seen my son in his home for nearly four and a half years. So much has happened since then, and going to see him became such an impossible fantasy. How on earth was I supposed to find time to go there in the midst of all the chaos that occurred during the break-up of my second marriage?

That doesn't matter now. What does matter is that my fantasy has become real, and I am going to get to experience a good time while I am in England seeing my son, and seeing where he lives. I don't quite know yet how this is all going to take place. I had a dream last night in which I went, and it was a disaster because I had not planned for it.

Now, though, I'm planning for it. I am going to make this real, and it will be an absolutely fantastic time. Henry is now 8, I am now 38, and we are both so looking forward to seeing each other.

So, yes, I'm sad putting the details of my departure from England down, because I know I'll be incrediby sad saying goodbye to him again. I love my son, the one I barely to get to see, with all of my heart. May this be the beginning of a new era of trips back to my ancestral home.

Wait - I'm first generation American. Can it really be "ancestral?"