Feels Like Home

I spent the whole day at home today, in my pajamas, and I'm not even sick. Try that on for size. I read once that, "home is the place they have to take you back, when you have nowhere else to go." Right now, home is the place where (generally) I go to shower and collapse for a few hours before the next flurry of activity. My particular home is small and messy, and when I'm not in it for long periods of time, I tend to not notice just how messy it really is. I prefer to blame the cats partying while I'm out than to think I'm just careless when I'm tired.

When I first married and moved to Houston, "home" was still back East. Home was still my parents' home. Home growing up was often wherever I was at the time - because we never stayed there for very long. Home base was Washington DC, because my family inevitably moved back to that area, like homing pigeons coming back to roost, before venturing out again. Home might have been a house, an apartment, a hotel room, or a townhouse. Within our dwelling, home was my bedroom - no matter where it was at the time. Home was where I kept my stuff. Home base was the old brown, oversized couch covered in plushy velour. Home smelled like my mom's burned cooking and my dad's Aquavelva.

Going home to visit after I moved out of my parents' house had mixed feelings. Nostalgic senses enjoyed that the same smells were there, the same throw pillows on the couch, the same figurines on the shelves. But the same tension and fighting were there at home, so it felt good to return to my new home and my new life, just the same.

Home now is the house where we live, but it's also wherever my children might be. Just as always, home is rooted to my family. I started to say it wouldn't matter if we lived in a cardboard box, but I'm not quite that altruistic. It would matter. But, yeah, it doesn't matter where we call home so much, as that home is when we are together. Home is supposed to equal safe, comfortable, warm.

So, what is home now? I've spent the whole day here, doing nothing but small chores and enjoying not getting in my car. So, home:

• Home is where I can go barefoot all the time
• Home is where I can sing outloud and not worry what anyone thinks (oh, Katie comments, but I don't pay attention to her)
• Home is where I can drop polite at the door and generally say exactly what I'm thinking
• Home is where I can wear the ratty old nightgown that feels so nice
• Home is where I can take long baths
• Home is where I keep my kitties
• Home is where I can lie in bed and do absolutely nothing for a while
• Home is where I can rollerblade in the driveway
• Home is where my family can roll around in the grass
• Home is where I can shriek like a girl when a Texas size roach gets inside
• Home is where I can have my hissy fits
• Home is where I can cry
• Home is where my children still hug me without checking to see who might be looking
• Home is where we still read outloud and snuggle after dinner
• Home is where I can play my harp and no one pays any attention
• Home is where I can leave my stuff in a heap and know it'll be there in the morning, without recriminations
• Home is where I can cuss while I'm cleaning the bathroom
• Home is where I can cuss pretty much any time I feel like it
• Home is where I can drink a second glass of wine and not worry about who is driving home
  
• Home is where I feel a sense of pride when I DO have the bathroom clean and neat
• Home is where I can ignore the phone, my e-mail, and any knocks at the door
• Home is better than Calgon. Better than any vacation. Home is better than chocolate.