Home

home/hōm/noun

1. the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.

Home, what a powerful word. A single syllabled word that conjures up so many immediate thoughts and feelings. Something can look, sound, smell, taste or even feel like home, but what exactly is home?

I have lived most all my life in the same building. I left for a bit, then I came home because it was the best move for my family at the time. Sometimes I wonder if I have created my own prison by doing so. I suppose I could have left at any time, but my financial situation made it unreasonable for me to do so. Because I stayed, I was able to provide a better quality of life for my children as well as my father. We pooled our finances together and managed to survive, sometimes by the skin of our teeth, but we always had a good roof over our heads, we had a place to call home.

I have always had a solid foundation to live upon. I have had some of the same neighbors for decades, my kids went to the same schools I did and even had some of the same teachers. I have built solid relationships with my mechanic, lawyer, and a number of other key service people. I even had the same postman for 40 plus years, a man who watched me grow from being a child to a single mom. I had Christmas gifts for him carefully placed on the porch every year and when time allowed, we shared our lives with each other, still do through Christmas cards now that he is retired.

I enjoy going on vacations to other parts of this great country, but even though I have a passport, I have never used it. It’s fun to get away and see new things, but nothing feels as good as that first step through the door when coming home. It always has, I love coming home. I enjoy going out to eat, see a show, hang with friends, but I rather have them come visit me. It doesn’t happen often, but when I have visitors, it gives me great joy to feed them, pour a beverage or two and share my home with them. I have created a safe space, comfortable and inviting. I don’t have any fancy furniture one needs to be leery of breaking, most of my pieces are resale or dumpster finds or so old, if no harm has come to them already, it probably never will.

It’s not just this house I have stayed with a long time. I had the same job for 16 years and I would probably still be there if they had not eliminated my position. It was heart breaking to leave, but considering how the past 4 years have played out, I think they did me a favor. It’s no longer the place I was so proud to work, hasn’t been for a very long time, but it was home to me. I had folks I had worked with for over a decade that were family to me. I still have many dreams of working there, some reoccurring. Just the other night I had one of them where the stairs to the second floor were gone and I would have to climb a rope ladder of sorts that wasn’t complete. It was a treacherous climb, but I refused to give up. Suddenly, I look up and one of the older ladies I had worked with is standing on the second level I’m so desperate to get to. I ask her how she did it and she simply states that she took the elevator. The elevator, of course! Do I climb down and go to use the elevator instead? No, I keep struggling to climb the rope ladder and finally spy a wooden ledge I can push off of and suddenly make it to the top. Why did it have to be so hard? Why didn’t I take the elevator? Why didn’t I stay at a job I could have kept doing the rest of my life? Because they didn’t want me there, hadn’t for a long, long time. I never really fit in after the buyout, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I stayed and played along until they basically kicked me out.

No matter, I have landed someplace that appreciates me more and I have managed to grow and learn along the way. However, would it be wrong of me to do the same thing, stay because I don’t know what else I could do that would afford me the lifestyle I’m used to? Same thing with the house, the house I have a love/hate relationship with. Is my love for the house keeping me from realizing some hidden potential? I have friends who plan to move to Florida in the near future. They have invited me to join them on this adventure to live somewhere new, somewhere completely different than all that I have known my entire life. It makes me wonder, could I do it? Could I possibly be happy someplace I know nothing about? Could I find a job? Affordable housing? Happiness?

Thinking about Florida, the first thing that comes to mind is the humidity, something I do not enjoy at all. However, I start to daydream about the possibility of finding a good job that would allow me to find a sweet little MCM home with my very own real live palm tree! Maybe I could live near my beloved pink flamingos, walk along beaches in my free time and drink dirty martinis with blue cheese stuffed olives in a vintage tiki lounge. Maybe I could, maybe I could do all of that, but I would be alone. My married friends that have invited me would be kind and have me over from time to time, but they have their own lives to live. I would need to find new friends, a new mechanic and a new lawyer. I probably would never know my postal worker, if I even ever received snail mail. I might be able to find a beautiful MCM home that made me feel safe and comfortable, but it would never be home. Worst yet, if I didn’t like it there, I would no longer have a house to go home to. Strangers would be living in my house, in my home. Honestly, the mere idea of that happening brings me to tears.

I’m a creature of habit. I tend to order the same food from the same restaurants simply because I know I will enjoy it. Why chance ordering something I don’t like, what a waste of money, right? Or wrong? I walk into the familiar restaurants and the owners are like family to me. They know what I am going to order even before I do and I do enjoy being greeted by name. However, have I hurt myself, stunted my growth potential by being this way? I also think I have a fear of being forgotten. If I stop going to these places, will they even notice? I have customers I would notice if they stopped coming and I would fear the worst, but am I odd being that way? I notice, most folks don’t.

My former place of employment is finally getting a remodel for the department I ran all those many years. There was supposed to be a remodel from the time of the buyout which is about 15 years ago. The rest of the store has been remodeled, some departments more than once, but the one I ran just never seemed worthy of the effort. I don’t know what has changed, they will probably lose square footage to something more valuable like a perishables department, but everything old is being moved or tossed. When I was told about this, the first thing I wondered was if some old fixture is moved, will there be an unearthed trace of me to find? An old name tag or some product I loved dearly, like some holy basil. Is there anything of me left to be found or is it as if I was never there because I left. There are still a handful of employees that know my name and greet me when I walk through the store, but it is no longer my home. All traces of the work I had done will be erased with the remodel and it will be as if I never existed at all.

I know the same thing will happen when I leave this house, whether it be because I have found someplace new to live or I pass from this plane of existence. I think part of me wanting to stay here is a hope that I am keeping the memory of my folks alive and the home they had created for us. I only have few things saved that belonged to them and I don’t dare change the kitchen cabinets and our boomerang patterned counter tops. I cherish the spot where the pattern is worn away from all the many meals and birthday cakes that were created in that small little piece of counter top, the ones my mother made, the ones I made and the same spot that my father would prepare his cup of coffee and beloved Banquet TV dinners.

If I leave this house, it will feel as if they never existed. If I leave this house, it will be as if my childhood will disappear. I have thought for years that I need to make some sort of mark in the basement cellar that folks would find many years from now and know that I had been here. They would know that someone who loved this house dearly lived her whole life here wondering what it would be like to leave, but never had the courage to do so.

Odd thing just happened while I’m writing this piece. The doorbell rang and there was a police officer at my door. He was looking for someone with a different last name than mine, someone who gave this address as the one where a summons was to be served. I don’t believe in coincidence, never have and never will. The officer asked me the name of the family that lives here. I hesitated for a moment, do I give him my maiden name or married name? I went with the married name. The maiden name is long since forgotten, not many people remember that family living here. The ghosts remain, but that family is gone.

I have some serious thinking to do. Do I want to leave while I am alive, leave this house to be home to a new family with new memories to create? Or, do I want to be the ghost that will eventually be forgotten? It’s bound to happen, whether it be at this house or a sweet little MCM home somewhere else, I will be forgotten…eventually. Then again, I am one of those folks that doesn’t necessarily believe that there are two things certain in this lifetime, death and taxes. Who knows, maybe this is all an elaborate dream and I will live forever, but if not, this is the house I will haunt. No where else will ever truly be home to me. So, I hope the folks that end up living here are prepared to hear a perpetual rendition of The Girl from Ipanema, smell cheesecake baking in the oven, taste blue cheese stuffed olives when they are sitting on the front porch and see a clear phantom typing away in the little room off the kitchen. More importantly, I hope they will feel the deepest sense of love, from a passionate woman who permanently made this place her home. Till death do us part? Not even.

#thelieswechoosetolivewith