In 4 months I'll be 50. But today I decided to do a little reflection on (nearly) 50 years of living.
First of all I have friends both younger and older than me. As we get older, age isn't as important as it was when we were under 21.
Speaking of 21, last night my wife Kathy and I took my step-daughter Abby to Henry's, a local bar and restaurant in Fort Wayne for the first time.
Abby turned 21 two weeks ago but she was out of town, and the past week has been the one week that she has been home between her summer internship and returning to college, which she did this morning.
What and where is this place we call home?
Is it a house, a town, does it change, are you sad when you leave it or excited to start fresh?
Home for me for the first 18 years was where my parents lived. For 10 of those years it was the house in the picture.
As long as my parents lived in that house, it was a "home" to me.
In 2001 we sold that house and if you drive by today, instead of green, it is yellow, which ironically is one of my favorite colors.
I returned to that home in 1998 but it wasn't until I met my wife Kathy that I decided to make Fort Wayne my "home" again.
My three kids, Rachael, Josh & Tiffany were still in high school about 50 miles west of here and I expected them to go out in the world and explore the way I did.
All three of them went to college after high school and Josh just got his degree a couple months ago. My goal as their Dad was to help them become self reliant, responsible young adults who would chase their dreams, where ever it took them.
At the moment, Tiffany, the youngest at 23 has been married 2 years and moved to Oregon last year with her husband Jon but now they are back in Indiana, about 100 miles away and doing fine.
Her older sister Rachael is 25 until next month, and lives and works here in Fort Wayne. We ran into Rachael and her boyfriend Brandon last night at Henry's.
Josh is in Arkansas this weekend attending a wedding with his girlfriend Madeline. Next weekend we will see her in a play she is acting in about 60 miles from here.
I wonder at times what place my kids think of when they think of "home". I have lived with Abby and her mom, my wife Kathy for 8 1/2 years, yet out of respect for her relationship with her Dad, she calls me Scott which is fine.
We are content with where we live. We like Fort Wayne. I have lived other places and the house we now call home is just a couple miles from the house in the picture I grew up in. I have learned to take it all in and not get too attached to "things", instead attach yourself to people.
So the answer to my original question, Where is home?, is where the people and relationships are.
How about you?
I think the definition changes for different people and different moments. For example, my daughter now lives in Florida, but she refers to Indiana as 'home' ("I can't wait to come home for a visit.") To her, I think the 'big' "home" is where I am. When she returns to FL from her visits she says "made it home ok" but it's the 'small' "home" - if that makes sense.
ReplyDeleteMy son, Todd, is very independent and to him, "home" is where ever he is living at the time. He seldom, if ever, refers to my house as "home" - to him, it's "your place" (I'll be at your place this weekend.")
For me, home is an emotional container. It's the house I live in now, it's the house I grew up in on Arcadia Court, it's the house my aunt and uncle who raised me as kid lived in in South Carolina.
Maybe it is true what that old saying references, 'home is where the heart lives.'
Thanks Joe, looks like we both agree. I'll have to ask my kids when I see them next what they think about this subject.
ReplyDeleteWhen married the first time, we lived in Kokomo, 4 places around Detroit and then out in the country around Warsaw. Fort Wayne for them was where their grandparents lived.
This summer when I traveled to Maine I saw my Aunt, Uncle and a cousin whom I had not seen in ten years and also visited the restaurant that my grandparents started that we use to visit when I was a kid. That felt "Home-ish" too.