Home.

Home is where the car is parked, and the doors left unlocked. Its where jeans are exchanged for pajamas. Where the make-up comes off and the hair is let down. Home is a sense of security; of peace of mind; of relaxation.

 

Home is where lifetime advice resides in the library of my parents’ minds.

Dad’s is filled with the practical. How to change your cars’ oil; the proper way to mow a lawn; when the right time to invest is the stock market is.

Mom’s is more spiritual, but still holds the same value. How to be true to yourself; follow your heart, but with a touch of brainpower mixed in; don’t cry for him, he doesn’t matter, what matters is your own happiness.

 

Home is where responsibility awakens.

In my younger years, it was in the form of pulling the smallest weeds from the garden. Making sure Mom’s plants got watered while she was busy at work. The responsibilities Mom gave were about the growth and addition of new life in the house. Dad’s were about its removal. The trash. Have you removed all the garbage from the upstairs? Take out the recycling. Take out the compost.

Being older, responsibilities have shifted. Barely. Its still weed the garden, water the plants, take out the trash, recycling, compost. But now it includes bills. Bills, bills, bills, bills, bills. Have you paid your car bill? Yes. Student loans? No. Electrical? Gas? Water? Life? Yes. No. No. Yes?

 

Home is where the love is.

Love in the form of fuzzy little bodies with cold little noses. The four-legged creature that cries when I’m not there, and cries again when I am. Who insists that the bed is entirely made for them, but will allow my presence as long as are cuddles included.

Yes, I fed you. Look! Your bowl is right there. Food! Eat it. No don’t cry at me; that’s all you’re getting. Okay fine. One treat. Maybe two. But that’s it! Maybe one more for the road.

 

Home is where the fun happens.

Mostly individual oriented. Novels read. Video games played. Cookies baked. Simple joys that can be shared either physically or spiritually through story telling.

Some are group oriented. Outdoor walks through the garden. Badminton on the front lawn. Marshmallow roasting over an open fire. Memories created together to last a lifetime.

 

Home is where school happens.

Where one rolls out of bed mere minutes before class starts, hair half a mess, pajamas on. There’s no webcam, so no one knows that a shower is desperately needed. What does it matter anyways? Days no longer exist as we are just existing; indefinitely.

Without the scheduled hours of class, time does not exist. Assignments still get completed, but the urgency is gone.

Perpetual relaxation.

Why be stressed when you never leave your house anyways? When truly nothing really matters when it comes down to it. It will get done. Eventually. When I feel like it.

 

If you had asked for a definition of Home a year ago, you may have gotten similar answers. Perhaps with the addition of where memories with loved ones are made. Home was a place of traditions fulfilled. Where the turkey was served. Where we would gather together to play board games until the wee hours of the morning before crashing on the couch, still half drunk from laughter and maybe too much wine.

But Home no longer has that laughter.

 

Home is more of a bunker now. It still holds the same value of safety, but it comes with a new sense of us versus them; uninfected versus infected; alive versus dead.

Home is where the disease isn’t.