Faking It

I've been wondering since I got back to El Paso; what makes somewhere home? For the past 6 months I've been living in El Paso. I've learned my way around the city--I actually like the city! I'm counting on El Paso to get me through the most excruciating, awful, painful, life-altering, beautiful, thrilling, add your own adjective from both ends of the spectrum, and exciting time of my life. While I have new goals for myself, my career, my life--getting to this point has been my focus for so long. It's literally a dream realized and I know I made a great choice. But then I went back to Phoenix for Christmas. My family lives there. I love my family. Wherever they are I will always have a home and that makes me lucky because that's more rare than people realize. I saw a lot of my friends while I was there and even though I don't have many friends in El Paso I don't think people make a place home. There are some friends I've had for years and we...

I feel like this year I had a really grown up Christmas. I drove 6 hours to get back to Phoenix--I could have flown but how would I get any of my presents back? Or the coffee maker and microwave my parents let me have for my office? The microwave is a beast too. I could fit it and my suitcase in my trunk and that was about it. A few months ago my friends from high school arranged for us to have a get together while we were all in town for Christmas. So on the 22nd we all went over to Natalie's house with everyone's husbands and kids (I don't have a picture because I didn't get one on my camera and no one's posted one yet-except Kellie but hers is on her phone...) and it was so fun to see everyone again! We've all kept in touch through the years but we only really ever see each other at bridal showers, weddings and baby showers. I haven't seen Stephanie since Rachel and Jordan's wedding and now she's married and has 2 kids! She said it doesn't see...