The flight home always feels shorter. Places you belong pull a little.

Time stretches when you are braced for something and compresses when you are heading somewhere you can stop bracing. Going back rarely needs the alertness that arriving did, so the same hours pass differently while the distance stays identical. Places you belong to do pull, in the plain sense that you quit resisting the trip.

Notice which direction feels long and which feels short in your own week. If one direction keeps feeling like the long haul, that is worth sitting with rather than explaining away.