Homecoming

Coming home is usually awkward at first. My father normally picks me up from the airport and then drives me back to the family house. He asks me questions of about how I’m doing and other things in my life, but I find it very difficult to give more than one-word or one-sentence answers. I really should be more conversational but I can never bring myself to anything beyond these basic answers. All that changes after about twenty-five to thirty minutes when we arrive at the house. I breathe in the air – the same air I breathed for about eighteen years. The neighborhood looks the same. The sounds are the same. It even smells the same, though I’ve never been sure what exactly it smells like. The door opens. Yeah, I’m home.