Your Real Home's in Your Chest

I tend to give my own definitions to things; family and trust mean something different to me than most people I know.  I’ve got pretty set personal definitions for those, most I’ve been working off of for years. Home is another word I have a different definition for. Only… I don’t know what it is. I’ve never known what home is.

                I’ll be honest, I don’t totally know what home means to me. You always hear that home is where the heart is, but I’ve never really felt at home anywhere. As long as I can remember I’ve gotten terrible bouts of homesickness, this sudden overwhelming sense of longing and feeling out of place. But you see, I grew up in the same house my entire life. Until I went to college I had the same neighborhood, most of the same classmates, the same church, and usually the same family members at the usual holidays. My life has been pretty consistent. So why do I have a memory of standing in the backyard of the house I grew up in and being suddenly overtaken by feelings of disphoria and, for lack of better adjective, homesickness.

My dream house.

                This week I thought that maybe it would finally stop. Even after getting married and making this apartment as much of a home as I can, I still don’t feel like I belong. Like this is my home. This week I was on the way to the mall with friends when I noticed that a house I’ve been in love with for three years was for sale. The next day Riq and I went to look around the outside; it was foreclosed so you can’t get inside without being pre-qualified, so we decided to just stalk around. Let me tell you, it’s beautiful. The yard is covered with big trees, ivy, and flowers. It even had a cute little gate to a separate garden. The front of the house has cascading greenhouse-like windows and a wrap around driveway. I was in love.

                It was all I could think about for days, and not just the house, but maybe, just maybe I’d finally have a home. I’d finally have a place to let the cats really run around, to have a garden, a garage, a basement. I could paint the walls, I’d have a yard. I could make this place mine. I could host holiday dinners. I am so tired of living in places of in-betweens. Of feeling like my life is on hold, like I’ll always be waiting to move forward.

                I thought I would finally have a place to feel at home. When I found out when had been approved for the loan to buy the house I almost died. It was short lived, because minutes later I got the email telling me that the house was uninsured, which apparently means that they can’t give out loans for it. Ask me how anyone is going to pay for it up front I don’t know… but we couldn’t get the house. I was a little relieved, a 30 year mortgage is a lot for anyone to think about, but it also meant that I would have to keep waiting for a home.

                Sometimes I worry that I’ll never feel like I have a home. I worry that even buying a house won’t achieve it. One of my favorite movies is Garden State, with the beautiful Natalie Portman and the witty Zach Braff. In the movie Andrew says to Sam about leaving home, “You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.”

                I love that quote, but I can’t help thinking that I never even felt home when I was a kid, and I feel like I’m just chasing the future for a feeling I may never have. Where is my home? How far or long do I have to wait to find it, to finally feel like I belong at a place?

                Then again, maybe it’s overrated. Maybe this feeling of home is just… a feeling. I’m writing this as I sit on my couch, surrounded by my cats, who I love with all my heart. One followed me into the shower today; another is asleep on my lap now, the third has been batting at my feet anytime I pass him lately.  They’re not my kids, but they’re certainly my family. My husband will be home from work in a half hour, I’ve never felt so close to another human. Someone who understands me so well or makes me feel so safe. I’ve got my family right here, and even if I never FEEL at home, I’ve got my home surrounding me. Maybe we all miss the same imaginary place, or maybe we’re creating that place all around us every day, we don’t need a house with windows and walls for that.

 P.S.

In case you're wondering, the title
of this blog comes from Captain Hammer.