Coming Home

I woke up at 5:45 Central this morning.  Ate the one snack I had left in my bag, and got ready and headed down.  My taxi guy was due to be there at 6:30, but he actually showed up early, which was surprising to me because Kyla had warned me that this service often runs late.  So at 6:30 we were already on our way to the airport.  I was a bit nervous because my flight was due to leave at 7:45 and I was raised under the "must get to the airport at least 2 hours ahead of departure!!!!" mentality.  I didn't realize just how similar to Mom and Mommom I am until I was standing there in the security lane freaking out internally about how slow it was moving.

But everything went off without a hitch, and I had time to buy something else for breakfast and make it to my gate and eat it before boarding even started.  Once I got on the plane, I then realized why Bruno said a 6:30 pickup would be plenty of time...We didn't get off the ground until 8:21.

This is my "it's very, very early and I haven't slept well in four days and I would just like to go home now, please" face.

The one upside to the Nashville-Atlanta flight, as well as the Atlanta-Nashville flight on the way there, was that I was in the window seat of a 3-person row and the middle seat was empty, giving me more space.  I have no idea why I couldn't sleep!  I guess, subconsciously, I didn't see the point since the actual flight was about 35 minutes.

I snapped this a couple minutes after we took off.  Watching the city disappear reminded me of the very first thing that Brennan said when we prayed together on Saturday night - he thanked God for what a special place Nashville has become for me.  And he was absolutely right; this city has a piece of my heart.  Now that I've been, I can't imagine not ever going back again.

I arrived in Atlanta just after 10:00 Eastern, but it took what felt like a sweet forever for us to actually get off the plane, so I huffed and puffed my way from the far, far end of one terminal to close to the other end of the next terminal and managed to get to my Atlanta gate just as boarding was starting.  My only row-mate was this elderly gentleman who initially seemed like the poster child for "grumpy old man", but soon enough we got to talking, and it was really cool.  He's traveled all over the world, and his stories were fascinating.  He turned out to be very nice, which made the plane ride so much fun that I didn't even think about how tired I was.  :)

Holly picked me up, and we went to Smithfield's for lunch.  Mmm mmm mmm.  Smithfield's barbecue sandwiches are one of my favorite things about NC.  It was a great welcome home.  I firmly believe that everyone should visit NC just to go to Smithfield's.  What cracked me up was that I put those last two sentences on Twitter and the Smithfield's Twitter wrote back "Welcome home!"  It's not the first time they've tweeted me, but that reply in particular made me laugh.

After that, we headed back to Campbell.  We had a great time talking the whole way, and she was nice enough to bring me a bottle of shampoo.  I had extra body wash and conditioner in my dorm, but gave up my last bottle of shampoo when the airport confiscated it.  Lesson learned!

I don't remember what else I did today besides getting all my laundry clean and sorting through all my pictures from the trip and getting them uploaded to Facebook.  I honestly don't think I did much else, and I'm totally okay with that.  The super early morning and the traveling were exhausting!

Today, I'm thankful to be home.  Nashville does indeed have a piece of my heart, and it probably always will, but it feels really good to be back with so many friends who love me so much.  I got several texts from people today asking if I made it back okay.  This is where I belong.  Campbell is home, at least for now.  And I'm very, very grateful to be back here in my room.

Oh, and my big soft bed.  I'm also thankful for that.  (It's going to feel like heaven after four nights on that hard hotel couch!)