Home

We've kind of been homeless for the last few years. Not like we were living on the street or anything, but we just didn't have a home. Right after the divorce we lived with my parents for about a year. It was such a nice place to live, and they never made us feel like guests at all. They went out of their way to make us feel at home, and we did. But it's just not the same as having your own house, and while we did feel comfortable and at home there, we weren't really "AT HOME" you know? Then we moved into an apartment in Monticello so Ethan wouldn't have to ride the bus (I know from experience how that LOOOONG bus ride with nothing to do can get you in trouble, and since trouble naturally gravitates toward Ethan, I knew it was a bad idea), and while it was nice enough, and we had some great neighbors we never quite felt like we belonged there. So after about a year living there we moved to Blanding so I could be closer to my internship. We had a super nice apartment there, and we fell in love with Blanding, but that wasn't home either. So this summer when we had to move (because I had graduated and no longer qualified to live there - long story)we had a really hard time finding an acceptable place to rent, so we started looking for a house to buy.
Since the divorce when all of our lives got rearranged, and things got mangled and changed, never to be the same again, we have been living in limbo. We have been living a life of "temporary". We never lacked a place to live (except that one time, when we did) we had all of our things, and places to put ourselves, but we didn't have a home.
HOME to me is COMFORT. Its the place you can be your really, real self. Its a place where you can curl up on the couch in your pajamas all day and not worry about who might see you. It's a place where you can put down roots, make a growth chart for your kids in the hall closet, have an impromptu dance party without bothering the neighbors. Its a place where memories are made, and love lives and your family grows and changes and strengthens. It's the place where you cook Thanksgiving and wake up to see what Santa brought you, and you lay on the freshly cut lawn on hot summer nights, and you pick out paint colors, and rearrange furniture, and conduct science experiments in the kitchen. Its where you LIVE. Its the place you are, a place you feel comfortable, and a place you can stay. It's solid and settled, and safe.
And its been missing for years.
And its been sad and unsettled and scary.
And while I thought it was just me who noticed, it wasn't. We all felt it, and we all needed it.

And now we have it! We have a beautiful new old house! (old house, new to us) We moved in at the beginning of October. It's amazing how in just a matter of days it changed our lives. It was interesting to watch the change that came over us. It's not that we were suffering, really, before, but it was so amazing to watch the change in my kid's countenance. They were lighter, more carefree, more like kids should be. Their behavior changed, their sleep patterns changed, their attitudes changed. Not that everything is perfect now or anything. It was a subtle change, that unless you know them well, you probably didn't notice, but it was a change. They are happier, they are settled, they feel secure. They are home. And we all love it.