Home: A trilogy

It has been an eternity since I have written a new post, and while I have meant to the time just did not present itself.  I was super sick, to the point where delirium kicked in and I thought I had sneezed glitter.  I also watched the same movie three times just so that I didn’t have to get up to change the DVD..it was that serious ya’ll.  The sickness began on the first day of what was SUPPOSED to be my vacation from work.  Needless to say I did not get to make any fun trips or go on any adventures that weren’t the couch, my bed, or the grocery store for additional toilet paper and soup.  I will say that in general I do not buy tissues, I just blow my nose with toilet paper.  Apparently there are whole groups of people  who buy tissues.  In boxes, and in little travel packets.  I, however am not one of these people.  I will hang out with a roll of toilet paper when I’m sick and be okay with that.

After the sickness passed, I did go on a trip.  And while not for a fun reason, it was very enriching all the same.  I took a trip to the place that I called home for the first eighteen years of my life.  I went with the purpose of caring for my mother after a surgery to replace her hip.  There were a ton of hip jokes, and some hip song references as well.  The fact that my mom, brother, sister and I had not all been in the same place together in seven years added to the level of shenanigans, and we were able to have some laughs despite the circumstances.

The pilgrimage made me think about the concept of home.  In this three parter, I want to explore the idea that there are many different homes for all of us in different stages of our lives.  When you move around a lot like I did during my time in the Navy, it makes you somewhat of a nomad.  I have not referred to the house that I grew up in as “home” in quite some time.  I might call it my parents house or my moms house, but not living there anymore makes it not really feel like my home.  When I was leaving to head to Pennsylvania and when I first arrived, I had some difficulty pin pointing what to call it.  Almost like when you are trying to remember details about something at the same time you are talking about it.  I soon just started calling it home.  This is the place I grew up.  There are a million little memories there, but it also felt so much different.  It seemed smaller and there were things I didn’t remember, even though I had been there for them.  Some things had been updated or changed, and some things were just gone.  I don’t know why I felt like this house would remain the same my entire life, as if it were some time machine that would instantly take me back to the day I left for boot camp.

Whether its ET phoning it, Dorothy Gale clicking her ruby slippers together reciting there’s no place like it, or Bubba telling Forrest he just wanted to go there; there are countless references to home in all kinds of movies.  There is also an endless list of songs that talk about home, and what it means to us.  I think that at the core, it really is where the heart is.  In some ways I think its how it makes you feel, how you see yourself when you are enveloped in the walls that know all of your secrets.  For me, some smells and songs will bring me right back to that row home on Green street.

What is home for you and how do you define it? Does the idea of home evolve constantly over the years and maybe mean something different during varying stages of life? While I am still processing all the answers in my own head, I have to think that just as Glinda the Good Witch told Dorothy; I have always had the power to go home, I just needed to believe in myself enough to get there.

Stick around for part two ya’ll, there is a whole new level of home to get to!!