Home is where your rump rests

We just spent most of the week cat-sitting (or cat-neglecting, depending on how you look at it) for Wolf's parents. We moved into their house for the week, brought our cat, clothes, Dr. Mario, Diet Coke. Everything I need. Needless to say, their house is way nicer than our apartment. It has the same basic stuff as we have in the apartment, but it's higher quality, there's more of it, and it's been treated better. But while we were up there I missed our little apartment so much! We got back last night, and I must've spent the first 30 minutes just walking around smiling, and every so often sighing with contentment. Tension I hadn't even realized existed was draining out of my body. I told Wolf, "It's good to be home." And I knew that it wasn't the couch or the teeny kitchen that I missed. It was the feeling of Home.

Home. It's such an indefinable, but special word. A home can be anything from a house to an apartment to a tent or even a cardboard box. I started thinking about what makes our apartment my home. It's certainly not the stuff in it, or the people necessarily, since Dexter and Wolf were both with me at his parent's place. I finally decided that it's the time I spend there with the people/cats I love, and the work that I put into the place as well. Maybe the aparment isn't the cleanest in the world, but when it is clean, it's because I made it that way. And when it's not clean, well, I worked at that too! We picked the color of the walls and the arrangement of our furniture. Everything that's in the apartment is there because we want it there. I feel safe in my home because I know it-- better than any other place. And in some way, I think it knows me too. Certainly the style and messiness-level are a reflection of who I am. It's also full of memories of friends and family coming over and sharing special times.

The first couple of years that we lived in Boulder, I didn't really think of it as my home. I thought of the apartment as a transitional residence, a place to store my crap, and kept waiting for when we'd move on to something bigger and better. As far as Boulder was concerned, I didn't really know it all that well, but by reputation it didn't seem like the place for me. It's a great place to live, but would I ever feel like a part of the community? I didn't know. But lately, I've definitely felt like this is unquestionably my home. And it's nice to know I'm there.