Friday, November 16, 2012

Permanent Place of Residence

So I'm home home. This is what I now call my parent's. It's strange for me to not just call it home, though. Sometimes I call it "down home," as in I'm going down home to visit the family. It's a strange thing when your parent's home is no longer really your home. My home is now really wherever my wife and I live. And right now we live in the suburb just barely north of Chicago called Skokie.

I love the name, Skokie. I love that we have an El line called the Skokie Swift. It click clacks and whistles through Skokie, and when I hear it from my home I think it sounds like the trolley in Mister Roger's Neighborhood. I love that we have nice backyards in which we can lean over the fence and talk to our neighbors.

I'm home home this weekend after not being here for a few months. I miss it down here. Even though my parents no longer live in the house I grew up in, this still feels like it was my home. I guess that's what homey means. It must be the feeling all Bed and Breakfast's hope to achieve.

My parent's newer home feels like a home for a part of my life, though. That weird stage of life that's more common today called being an adult child. Sure, we're always our parents children, but if you are single up into your late 20s or mid-30s or beyond you enter a different stage. You have a home, but sometimes it is hard to have call it your permanent place of residence. it was hard for me to ever make my current residence my main address on forms. What if i move into a new apartment? What if I finally buy a home? And usually my emergency contact was my mom or dad.

And now I really have a home with my wife. I fill out forms now with that address as my main address. My wife is my emergency contact.

And look forward to going there the way I used to look forward to going home to my parent's. Don't get me wrong, I still love visiting my parent's home, but it feels more like visiting now. Visiting a place where we are always welcome.

And now that Heather and I have a place, I look forward to creating that space in our home for friends and family. It's hard sometimes because we covet our time together. We love hanging out just the two of us. But we also know we were blessed with a home that can and should be a blessing to others.

Well the coyotes are out tonight yelping and crying. Gonna go listen. Down home.