So as you all know, my Love and I moved to a new place: our first "our place." We call it home. We ask "our house?" when agreeing on a place to meet and just about all of our close friends have stopped by for dinner, coffee, or a glass of wine. We have all of our belongings here. This is the place where we open our eyes in the morning and the place where we close them at night. We love the extra space. We love built-in-book cases and kitchen cabinets for days! We love the fact that we can yell at each other from separate ROOMS...not just up and over the bar that divides the kitchen from the dining room from the den from the bedroom. We love the fact that we use our couch now to sit and read for hours on end. We used to just not read and we watched movies sprawled out on the floor. We love watching movies in bed because "the big TV" has to go in our room because it is too big for the built-in-book cases. We love that we "feel" blessed at home because we are blessed in our home.
However, I'll tell you several things that are not home. First and foremost, it doesn't feel like home when my Love isn't here. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the times he runs to a friends house or out to play ball. I need down-time just like anyone. But the days his meetings at work drag till 9 or 9:30pm doesn't feel like home. Second, not being 4.5 minutes from the house I grew up in, away from my Mama and Tutters and Poi is not home. Now I am 20 minutes (equal to 8-9 days). Third, not being able to walk out of the front door and take a sunset jog down Fairview, around the park in front of FUMC, and up the hill on College Street. We traded that for a treadmill. I miss not being able to walk out of the back door and watch the Huntingdon Hawks play ball from our second story balcony. That balcony was also awesome for hot coffee and hot cigs. on a cold morning before the day really started. But we traded that for watching a lake with a fountain and I quit the cigs. Fourth, our bathroom has this weird "macaroni" smell...Ask Nick, I will literally wake from deep slumber and ask him..."Do you smell that? It's like macaroni." That eerie realization that this place wasn't REALLY made just for us. You know...everyone has a house, or a room, or a closet, or lover's t-shirt that smells like home. Needless to say, every minute I am in this place there is a mango candle burning away in our bathroom. Fifth, our neighbors wake up at 5am and do something to the beat of this weird, Indie/Indo (whatever)-persuasion-techno-dance music - ish- stuff. It just booms through the wall untill 7 and of course I moan to Nick, "Do you hear that?" And eight, there is this green mold stuff growing under the sink in the kitchen. It does not smell and as far as I see there are no spores...but not homey, nonetheless.
There is no sweet or philosophical ending to this one. Just wanted to post my thoughts.
Until next time, don't hurt the Love.
Post inspired by "The Green Life: Home, part 1, etc."
And I really wish I knew how to do the connect a link to your post thing right now.
3 comments:
It's me, Emily. This posting name just felt more appropriate. :) I know the feeling of what is NOT home. We have to rent here because we are not allowed to buy. Something in the SOFA agreement the countries have. Anyways, my landlord is crazy, literally, and I feel like I can't do anything to this place to make it feel like home because in 7 months I would just have to change it back to it's original state. Granted we have been here for nearly 2 1/2 years now but we were in CA for a year of that time. I can't wait to be back stateside, buy a house, and make it MINE!
And the whole distance thing from family? I am a 10-12 hour plane ride from all of mine. And honestly, at some times it's nice to be that far away from some of them. I love them all, but the space is great. But then I also can't run around the corner, or just down the street as it would be if we were still in Bridlebrook, to visit the Mielke's new place.
Send pics with your stuff moved in when you can! Mr. Muffin has my email address.
Hi, Laura, I know we've never met, but I hope you don't mind if I comment on your blog anyway... :-)
It's weird now, living a little further north than, say, Montgomery or Tupelo, that things that are still hot button issues are more like arguing and sometimes screaming and boiling-over issues, instead of further south where people feel guilty and whisper. I wonder where that comes from...
When I worked at the newspaper in Amory, MS, we used to make fun of a certain contingent of people in town that would whisper when they talked about black people, even when they were saying something harmless.
Local person example: "You know, they have that Wednesday night supper down there at the black church."
So whenever we used the word black in any context, we would whisper it.
Newspaper staff example:
Staff member 1: "We need a new ink cartridge."
SM2: "Okay, I'll get one- color?"
SM1: "No, black."
Hey, I think that was almost as long as Mary's comment!
Hi Laura,
I'm glad you liked Home: Part I.
I have noticed the blackwhisper, too. It cracks me up.
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