where is home for you?
home is not necessarily a concrete where. when i was young, i could pinpoint home to an address – ask me where home was and i would spit out RR5 box 23, Austin, MN. it was an easy, simple answer. cut to our move to the new london-spicer area, and i was conflicted; at first i still thought of austin as home, but then as the months progressed, it gradually pulled away and new london became home. enter college, and everyone went “home” over break, weekends, summer. even after i graduated from college, i still talked about going home – and i didn’t mean my apartment; i meant my parents’ home in new london.
but something happens when you meet someone you want to be with on a more permanent basis who isn’t your immediate family. somewhere in there, a shift happens in your mind that moves home from a physical place to a person. and maybe home wasn’t really about the physical place all along – it was about the family, the traditions, the laughter. but there was a point where i was in a flux of what, or who, home actually was. i would say i was going home to new london for some event, but once i got to new london, i had to get back home to nate. after a year or so of marriage, home was 90% nate, and now home is always where nate and the kitties are. if i’m going to new london, i’ll say i’m going to new london or to my parents’ house. even so, when i’m with family, i’ll always be home.