It was only a dream...

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of home lately. Since I'm planning to sell my house and relocate into the city within the next year, it's something that quietly nags at the back of my mind from time to time. By the time I leave, I will have been in this house longer than any other; all of my life, I've been on the move. The last seven years have been a respite. So much has changed in that time, but this place has been a constant. I've done so much work to make it mine that it feels like an extension of self - my own shell, in which I feel safe and protected. It's a bit unnerving to think of leaving.

So what, I ask myself, makes a home? Everyone has their own definition, and each is meaningful. It always seems to have its own feeling, though. Something can smell like home, or sound like home. It can look homey, and it can invoke memories of home. But it always feels the same.

For many years, I thought of my grandparents' house as the closest thing I had to a home. We'd moved so often when I was younger that a lot of the places we lived just felt like houses after a while. My grandparents' house, though, was different. It smelled of Rose Milk hand lotion and fruit flavored Certs candies. The flocked wallpaper along the staircase never changed, and the faux black-bearskin bedspread in the bedroom where I slept always felt softer than green grass in the springtime. The chimes of the antique clock, the mystery of the laundry chute (from which Santa's voice would magically boom as Christmas approached), and the closet shelf filled with playing cards, dominoes, and a plastic bowling set were all so much a part of that sense of peace. I simply knew that at Grandma and Grandpa's house, there was happiness.

It's been a long time now since my grandma passed away. Nine years, which have been long and painful for my grandpa. The house is sad now, and he struggles a bit more every day to make it feel like more than a house. I still feel loved the moment I walk in the door, though. The memories are still there.

So again, I look at this house, which I have made into a new home. The bookshelves in the living room are packed with poetry and pictures, and the kitchen smells of cookies and spices. The clutter of A's childhood fills corners which are lit with sunlight filtered through wooden shutters. My big warm bed welcomes me in every night. Here, we have memories of our own, of good times and bad. We have laughed here, and we have cried. We have loved, and we have lost. We have done what needed to be done, and reaped the rewards of our efforts.

Finally, after so many years of searching for a home of my own, I now realize that it's not something you find - it is something you make. This house, in which we have lived for so many years, has been the first place that I've felt strong enough to pull together all of the pieces of my life and build something beautiful of them.

I have built a home.

And I can take it with me now, no matter where I go.