Now when I say “home,” I say it in reference to the place I sleep in Eugene. Even this reference will change in a few weeks, when I move out of my landlady’s home and into another rented house, but will feel more like my home, because the landlord doesn’t live on the premises.
Home is a tricky word and I have to be careful how and when I use it. I try to avoid calling my apartment in Eugene home when talking to my mother, because I don't want her to feel that I've forgotten my loyalty to my Maryland home, my childhood home, my home home.
I wonder if I have a stronger attachment to the word home and the emotions behind it, because as long as I have been alive, my family has only ever lived in one house. Home to me is not a string of houses in different states with different neighbors and different schools. It is one place where I can actually associate childhood, adolescence, school, and church all together. Being home schooled meant I spent more time at home than the usual child. Going to church on the same property that I lived on meant I spent even more time at home than the average child. Because I lived on a large property, it meant that my friends would more often come over to my house to hang out.
All of these situations result in me having a great many associations and attachments to the place I call home.
Which brings me to the idea of starting a new home. When I first moved to Eugene, I moved into someone else's house. I sleep in a pre-furnished room. I use someone else's microwave, shower, refrigerator, spatula, dish soap, washer and dryer. It is just too convenient. Over the next few weeks I will move into my new home. An empty apartment that I will not own, but will be entirely mine for at least a year. I am painting it, furnishing it, putting life into the house and making it a home. Do you see the difference?
So the other night, as I was biking back to my bed, watching my rolling shadow grow larger and longer beneath the passing streetlights, I got so excited about the idea of preparing a home for myself. I described it to people as my nesting instinct setting in. And although that makes me sound matronly and decidedly not progressive, I don’t really care.