The walls of this home have bore witness to priceless memories made. These walls have hosted family gatherings and celebrations of life's biggest and littlest moments. These walls house, no pun intended, most of the treasures of my heart.
But this house isn't home to me.
These walls, they are nothing more than dry wall and paint. I've tried to fall in love with our house here. I've tried hard to make it feel home, furnishing it and decorating it until it felt right. But after three years this house does not feel permanent. My soul longs to return to where we once lived. Where our story started. Where we first became Michael and Ashley.
I started thinking about what home feels like rather than where it is.
Home, to me, is in the laughter of my boys as they explore their brotherhood. Tinny, guttural, make your eyes crinkle at the corners laughter that fills the whole house no matter what room or floor they are playing on.
It's finding my husband's warm feet in bed at night. Running my ice cold toes up and down the soles of his feet, him trying so hard not to give in to the chill. It's falling into bed with him, exhausted, at the end of the day. A tiny act that I've come to take for granted despite spending the majority of the first few years of our marriage apart during the week, coming home and climbing into bed after a long day at work.
This house is not my home. I've tried to love it. I gave it time but all I can think about it leaving.
Returning.
Returning.
But home, to me, is wherever my people are.
It's curling up on the couch with Sullivan like I did so many afternoons when I was pregnant with Carter. It's tucking my feet up underneath his warm belly as he sits at my feet and my fingers dance, absentmindedly, along the keyboard of the computer. Words spilling onto the screen with no rhyme or reason.
Home is that sweet, sweaty, slightly sour smelling nook in my baby's neck. Wrinkles that I couldn't love any more if I tried, just asking to be kissed over and over and over again. It's watching his tiny body crest and fall with each breath breathed as he sleeps.
Home.
Home isn't a place. But my people? They are my home, sweet home.
My husband is Army as before that we were both in the military so we've moved A LOT. Home is people for us - it's our small family and our larger family of Army friends. It's even going home to see our family at "home." For us houses are places we move in and set up and then get ready to scrub and fill holes in the walls in a year. Home is sitting down for a beer after work, coloring at the kitchen table, playing ball in the yard and having new friends for dinner.
ReplyDeleteI often feel that way about our house. I even said to J a couple of weeks ago "do you feel like this house is ours? because I don't" and he looked at me like i had a 3rd eye. but, you're right, as long as my people are here that's what matters.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way. I don't think my husband even realizes I don't love our house like he does. My hubby and my son make it homey for me though. Glad to know I am not alone!
ReplyDeletethis is so true. granted we live in an apartment right now, but home is where the love is. where the laughter is. where memories are. home is where we make it, not the physical walls of it.
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written, Ashley! I loved it!
ReplyDeleteBless. I can't imagine not living at 'home'. But you're right Ashley, these boys are now your home. And whereever they are and you are together, that's home. For now. Maybe one day life will take you back HOME! I pray that's the case! I'm a BIG home-body so I know that feeling of wanting to be HOME.
ReplyDeletexoxoxoxo
I have been feeling the same about our house for the last year or so and it wasn't until recently when I realized that it's not the house that makes the home, but the people I share it with. And you said it best - it's not the house that makes the home, but the people that do! Thank you for your honesty AP!
ReplyDelete