Home is where the heart is

There's no place like home.

Home is where one starts from.

Home, sweet home.

The best journey takes you home.                  

There's no place like home.

It is has been an interesting transition these past few weeks and spoiler alert:  difficult transitions to boot.

Having Lila with me in Providence helped establish a connection to my new apartment.  Having my art and most of my personal belongings with me also helped me make a connection.  

Then, I kind of fell apart.

As Lila started packing for school, I think the emotional wear and tear got the best of me and my body just shut down.  For twelve hours, I was propped up in my bed dealing with what most likely was a migraine.   As I sat on my bed unable to open my eyes or move, my anxiety started to skyrocket due to panicked thoughts around how I was going to drive 2 1/2 hours to Lila's new school in the next 48 hours.  I felt so alone.  There was no one I could call to set up as a back up plan to take her if I was unable to drive.  I freaked out even more.

 

The next day, I had to work and had to pace myself so I was well enough to make the drive the following day.  That's when I started to cry and asking myself, 'what have I done?!'. I started thinking about the days when Lila wasn't going to be with me and it was going to be just me in a strange city.  I heard the faint voice of reason under the clutter of panic reminding me that I would be just fine but it took some time before I could pay attention to it.

The experience really got me thinking about 'home'.  The whole concept of feeling loved and safe in a space with other people.  As a child, I grew up in a fractured environment broken apart by divorce and a parent who struggled with an undiagnosed mental illness.  I would never call the house we lived in a home, but I did have a safe haven at my paternal grandparents home.  That was where I learned about family, love, and safety.  As I grew up, I continued my search for 'homes' through the families of others and to a certain degree, I would be blessed with respite in other people's places.

I continued my quiet seeking for many years.  I didn't know how to live in one place for very long, moving from apartment to apartment secretly thinking the next one would be 'the one' that would fill that emptiness and longing for a sanctuary where no harm would come my way.  

About a decade ago, those were the most harrowing of days for me as I lived with fear and loss during some tremendously painful times.  The only place I could ever feel safe at that time was my Aunt Susan and Uncle Peter's house in New York. The few times I drove up the lane for visits felt like driving through invisible gates that would lock behind me to keep out the Big Bad World and the reality that was my life experience at that time.  My recent visit was the first one since those days and to be there in different circumstances added more layers of love for the place that is, as far as I'm concerned, the closest thing to a childhood home to me even though I was never there as a kid.  I am blessed to have such a home in my life. Thank you, Aunt Susan and Uncle Peter!

 

Later, I learned that I could create my own home that would be my very own sanctuary. I had the ability and the blessing from The Universe to be able to buy my very first home and over the eight years that we lived there, it became a fortress without any walls.  It was a place I could fill with love and joy.  A place to raise my daughter. A place I could cry in, dance in, and live in.  I dealt with both bouts of depression and bouts of spontaneous celebration in that home.  To leave it was both heartbreaking and necessary in a way.  Thank you, Pardee Street!

So, I headed to an unknown city to create a new home in Rhode Island.  I took my daughter to her new home at her school.  Amidst all the travels, I now sit in yet another 'home' in Pennsylvania.  Whenever I come to this neck of the woods (which will be more often now that I live on the East Coast!), this is where I stay and each time I am here, it is being with family.  I may not have been born or wedded into it, but they are my family.  I am blessed to know them.  They were also here during those harrowing days and without question, opened their space and hearts to me so I could find safety in the storm of living. Thank you, Wendy, Terry, Gillian, Olivia, and Pocono!

I am still navigating some serious uncertainty about what will be my future and then I remind myself that everyone is doing that same dance.  I feel fortunate to know some pretty incredible people who have shared their houses that became my temporary home over the years.  And the lesson I carry with me today is that home is where the heart is; as long as there is love, there is home.