Struggling Well With Life

Still in Jersey.  Hot. Humid.  On one hand, it is so great to visit where you grew up, to drive past homes you lived in, to see where your high school used to be (they tore it down), and it is always great to be near the ocean.  Summertime at the Jersey shore is a hoot!  Also, it is a gift to be with family, to be in my dad’s world a bit.  If I were catholic, I would be petioning him for sainthood.  On the other hand, there is this weird out of body thing that happens for me when I return home.  I catch myself slipping back into that “Jersey talk”, and have to remind myself that I really have graduated from the junior high and am a full grown man with a life and family of my own.  In some odd time warp deal, I find myself going back thirty years and pushing my brother’s buttons like I did way back when.  I should have brought Terri and the girls on this trip - they let me get away with nothing!  Families bring out the best and the worst in you.  Going home is fun, and fattening.  Always good to be with family - drama and all, but I am glad for the distance of thirty years, and the work God has done.