I should have known better, but then again, I always do things I know I shouldn’t.
Just a little while ago, I sat down to watch a travel show on Washington, DC. Now I’m achingly homesick.
San Jose has beautiful weather (so far), it’s close to the ocean and the mountains, and an hour away from San Francisco… but it’s nothing at all like home. It’s too new, too low and spread out, too suburban. I miss walking around Georgetown in the fall, seeing magnificent open vistas with monuments, quirky shops on 14th street, and lots of trees. I miss feeling that the place I am in is steeped in history, that Washington really did sleep there. I miss the familiarity that 38 years in one place gave me. I miss my friends and family, a neighborhood where I knew people, my old office, and the comfort of shops, restaurants, and institutions I grew up with.
My homesickness is starting to come more often now, and I keep wondering what it will be like to be back home next week, only to leave again 8 days later to come back to San Jose, where I am alone and almost completely without friends or employment. Just me, in a big house with a little dog, and a cloudless sky.
