I grew up in a large family – eight siblings to be exact. We lived in a big blue house. We loved the blue house. It had carpeted stairs that were perfect for sliding down in sleeping bags and boxes. It had a huge yard with a pool which was ideal for games of Roobinhood and Marko Polo. On Sunday nights we would have all our friends from church come over to play kick-the-can and cop-and-robbers in the dark. Sunday mornings, however, were not quite as fun. I always knew I was going to end up with a few burns on the ears if one of my older sisters was curling my hair. As a kid I only understood the inconvenience of having to wear those silly dresses and keep my Sunday socks white, it was not until I was an adult that I realized the painstaking organization and methodical preparation my mother would go through on Saturday nights to ensure they she had all nine kids washed, dressed and out the door for church at 9 am. Many of the years in the big blue house were focused around church. My childhood was captivated by the magical (although magic was strictly forbidden) stories of the bible.
I moved into small square white house. It was my first time living on my own … well with four other people – I guess, away from my family home would be a better way to put it. My life was captivated by the stories of all the interesting people I was meeting. In the white house I was able to deconstruct my family home – I made my own rules, I discovered my own boundaries and molded my own morality. The white house is where I came to realize that the big blue house was my parents’ home but it was just my house. It was the place they built (metaphorically they didn’t actually build it), where they raised their children, and where they shared their lives together. The blue house laid the foundation, but the white house is where I started to create the blueprint for my home.
As the years past I did many different things; I traveled, I worked a variety of jobs, I went to school, and I met the love of my life. After some amount of time we moved into our first house, the polka-dot house. It was named this because when we were fixing it up I made some stencils and painted one large living room wall brown with big blue polka-dots! This house had a huge backyard and we planted a massive garden. We loved to entertain, we threw dinner parties galore. This was a lively house, filled with music from the record player and many people laughing and dancing. While we were fixing and brightening up this house we were also building what would become the frame of our home.
The next house was the red house – Boy! Those were a busy few years. I managed a busy restaurant, we eloped to Mexico and got married, my restaurant burned down, I went back to university, years after our elopement we planned and had a huge wedding. Throughout these years we were building away on our home.; slowly adding walls, floors, a roof and more.
After red house moved into a tent. We packed up a motorcycle and traveled from Germany to Egypt. Our house on wheels. This is when I truly realized that our home was complete. The year of travel allowed me to see quite clearly that the home we built is wherever we are together; it is the place where we are sharing our lives.
My home is not in a place but in time; it is in the time it took to grow and learn, it is in the time spent discovering myself, it is the time spent with the ones I love.
My home is in my story.
Work Cited
Beach Front Blue House. N.d. Pixabay. PIxabay. Web.
