I've been thinking a lot about home lately, spurred not only by my current situation but by those around me. About what it means to be home, to feel at home, to go home. I seem to be surrounded by this theme right now in my life, so I figure the universe might be trying to tell me something.
Right now, home is a strange place. Home is someone elses home, that they feel fiercely protective of and that they aren't sure they want me to be too comfortable in. Home is my husbands home, where he has a place all to himself (his music studio). I don't have that space. My space is borrowed. My things are in storage. I have my clothes, my sheets, my mattress-- everything else is not mine.
So what defines home then? I don't want home to be my things, because that sounds sad and shallow, but the architecture of a place, the things you see and touch each day make up such a large part of not only what feels like home, but who you are at home-- that I can't divorce myself of them and not feel a little empty. It is only my blankets, my art, my dishes in that storage unit in Enosburg Falls. I am more than my blankets and art. But then again, they help define who I am. I am a person who owns some awesome art. I am a person who loves to cook and has beautiful dishes to do so with. I am a person who delights in blankets. I imagine that when we move, it will be like Christmas as we unpack, all the beautiful things that I've lived without for months.
So, if home is not the things you love, it is (as one might have hoped) the people; and home is not the space you need (that I need so dearly); then how does one feel at home when there is no home to be had? I've been disappearing, finding space inside the pages of books. I've been sitting in a hammock and borrowing the backyard for a bit. I've been daydreaming in the car. And I've been waiting for a space to call my own. It's not working out so far.
And finally, what does it mean to go home? When we lived in Massachusetts, I was always so torn. I loved to visit Vermont and NY, to see family and relax in a way I couldn't in MA. I would sigh as we left, winding our way down I89 and wish we lived here. I would pine for dinners with family, for mountains and lakes and fresh air and stars. And then I would get home, to our cramped apartment and our cats and our late nights and pizza boxes. How I miss those late nights, that cramped apartment. Now, we have come home, and I miss where we were. I pine.
The toughest part about this is not knowing exactly what I miss. I do not miss the commute, the expense, the job, the community, the messy apartment. But I find myself pining for my kitchen counters (because they were mine?), for my late night with my husband (because we were alone, or because we were there?), for a life that is now gone. And the most upsetting thing about all of this is that I feel homeless, cast out into the world with no place of my own. I never would have thought I would feel this way, so angry and caught up in something that seems so insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But I do.
I want to go home. I just need to figure out where that is.
The good news is, I am positively certain of one thing. Wherever home is, be it in Vermont or someplace entirely different- I know that the only way I'll ever feel at home is if John is there with me. So, I guess this isn't all bad, after all.
