I Have Been Away

I have been away, I'm still away for that matter, up in Vermont at school. I spend my days here, running around doing paperwork and trying to form my words into intelligent sounding sentences. I spend my evenings laying on my dorm room bed listening to the crickets and thinking about my husband and my kids at home.
Don't get me wrong, it's beautiful here; the town is postcard perfect, the campus, full of old brick buildings and thick-topped trees. I try not to wish it away too fast because the time I spend here working is also filled with irreplaceable conversations with my school friends.
But I find myself missing the cacophony of my house; the guinea pig chirping for a carrot, the microwave beeping, the storm door flumping closed every two minutes as the kids run in and out of the house. It's those little things, along with the few firey leaves I slip into my pockets as I walk across campus, that I keep in my heart until I get home.