Assignment 2.2 My Sense of Home
Write a short story (600 – 1000 words max) that describes your sense of home and the values and stories that you use to connect yourself to your home and respond to all comments on your blog.
My sense of home is a strong one. Home has always been an important solid in my life and the feeling of being comfortable in a home is big to me. My mother has a lot to do with this. My mother’s home was a welcome one. She had an open door policy, in some ways. My friends were always welcome to come over, eat, stay over if in need. One day, my 16 year old friend showed up at my door. Her parents were on vacation and they had locked her out of her own house because they didn’t trust her there on her own. My mother didn’t bat an eyelash: of course she could stay with us. Was she a vegetarian? We’re just serving dinner. I was embarrassed though. I was embarrassed of my home, growing up. It was always messy; always somewhat chaotic. My friends’ mothers spent time cleaning and organizing their houses. My mom was too busy working, trying to get certified in a trade, and raising three kids on her own. Still, I craved the perfect, clean, home that my friends had, and vowed that my own home as an adult, would never be chaotic. Later, in my early 20’s, I moved to Germany with my German boyfriend at the time. We planned to live in Germany until his Canadian visa came through – he wanted to start working after getting his career on track and he could only do that in Germany. Since I didn’t yet have a career (I was still in school), I gladly accepted the adventure. I had never been to Europe. When we arrived, we planned to stay with his parents until we got on our feet – until he found a job related to his career. We stayed with his parents for three months. Their home was amazing. It had been featured in a German architecture and interior design magazine, and they were friends with the architect who had designed it (we had him over for lunch once). They had at least 3 staff working in the house everyday: a cook, a housekeeper, and a gardener. This was a lifestyle I had only read about. After a while though, I noticed that I was never quite relaxed. Sure, this home looked perfect, but there were so many rules! You had to open the kitchen windows at a certain time and leave some doors closed at certain times. Put every speck of anything away immediately. Wipe down sinks and taps in the bathroom each time, but not with the white cloths, what happened to the white cloth – why is it stained? That one was left a mystery. We had his friends over once as a planned, adult gathering, but it was a little stressful for his parents. I wondered why his mother wanted to have such a perfect home if no one was looking at it. No one was comfortable coming over, and his mother wasn’t comfortable having anyone over. As I tried to relax in the beautiful house, reading a book in the living room, I realised there were more people working in the home than currently in it. And I didn’t feel comfortable. I didn’t like being cleaned up after by a housekeeper older than my mother. Did I ever crave my mother’s welcoming chaos then. I missed my home. I missed the welcoming nature of my mother and the lovely people that were a part of that. I missed the mess! I missed the comfort I felt, and that only comes from the feeling of being truly at home. Ever since my experience in Germany, I felt grateful for my own sense of home. I was no longer embarrassed – I was in fact proud of how welcoming my home had been and hoped to continue what I learned, when I grew up with a home of my own.
Works Cited:
All ideas in this post are from my own personal experiences.
