A year on the road and I’m home.  I get dropped off by a ride I had hitched from Buffalo about a mile away from my house and begin to make my walk home. My mom will be surprised to see me. She hasn’t seen me since I left a little over a year ago. I walk the sidewalk next to the road that I used to drive to work on everyday for 5 years. I wonder if they would take me back. I wonder if I even want to go back. I got a college degree now, but I don’t even know what job I would get with it. Cars zip by me as I continue walking home. I could probably hitch one last ride to get me home, but I don’t mind walking now. I had walked everywhere in this last year that a mile felt like a quick walk around the street.  As I continued walking home I couldn’t help but notice that every house still looked exactly the same just with some newer fancier car parked in every driveway. I could see my house in sight now. I could see my old car sitting in the driveway, almost in the same spot I had left it. I had sold it to my sister before I had left town. I walked up to the front door got to the handle and hesitated to open the door. I almost thought about knocking for a moment, until I decided to just walk in instead. As I opened the door I could hear my mom scream from upstairs. “I thought you had work till 8”

“Hi Mom” I said

“Bryan is that you?”

I just put on a little smile as she ran down the stairs and gave me a hug.

“I didn’t think you were ever coming home.”

“I wanted to surprise you”

“What a wonderful surprise” She said as tears began to fill her eyes.

We sat down at the table and I told her a little bit about my adventure. I told her all the good parts and left out a lot of details to not worry her as much. We talked for about 3 hours and then she made dinner. It was the first real meal I had eaten in months. The last one was at the household of a family I had met that had allowed me to stay at their house for awhile. After dinner I pulled out my old cell phone from my room and went through the numbers trying to think of who I should call first to let know I had come back home. Reluctantly I picked up the phone and dialed one of my friend’s numbers in the house phone. It rang and rang and then finally a voice I could barely recognize. It was Geoff’s voice.