Home Sweet Home

I live in a house. It is my home, has been for years. But it was not my house. It was my husband's parents' house. We moved in for one reason, and stayed for another. The stayed longer for more reasons. It is where we have landed, planted seeds and grown roots. And fruit. We have had a baby since we moved in here, and this is the only home he has ever known. We are home.

First, I moved all my life. It was a career I started at an early age. We moved every year for all my life, never more than a year in one place. We always seemed to move in the middle of a school year too, so I always changed schools. I was always the new kid. I was also never the popular kid, so moving was often a relief for me in that respect. When my husband and I had an apartment a few years back, and lived there for four and a half years, it was a big deal to me. When we moved out, I left a part of myself behind not many people could understand. It was the longest I had been anywhere. Never mind that our community had gone so far downhill in the time we lived there that I would not have even wanted to drive through it much less live in it, it was our home. We grew tomatoes and had a baby in that apartment.

Then we moved here, to this home. We were only suppose dto be here a year or so, to save a down payment on a house. Employment was good. The plan was solid. HA! The job went away, the one that followed was sorely inadequate. It looked like our plan would be extended a bit, I got a job, things started moving more slowly but still moved. Then things changed yet again, and we found ourselves in the perfect position to help care for Pat's mom when she got sick. By he time she left us several years later, were we were "home". Kids in schools, new baby here, registered to vote, the whole deal.

Now the house that was our home has become the home that is our house. Pat's dad wanted us to live here and have the house after he died, and here we are. Suddenly, it is so much more. Suddenly, we are homeowners! Holy shit, every little thing is a thing now. Every noise every appliance makes. Every crack in the wall, I mean um, IF there were cracks in the walls. Geez. *cough* Anyway, everything is a thing. It's not like we never repaired anything, bought an appliance, painted a wall or fixed a leak. But it's different when you are solely and completely responsible for all of, and it is where your family is sheltered and if you lose it somehow you have nowhere to go....ok, calm down chick. It's a huge responsibility, this is my point. And when you have never owned anything more than a car, never lived anywhere for more than a year or two (or four), it is a huge deal. At least to me.

And it is a mess. Oh yes, a mess. We have everything we own, everything Pat's parents owned, and much of what the entire family owned. Oh yeah, and the three kids. They like to make messes, not so much clean them.