Happy Thanksgiving

What does home mean to you? A cottage?  A farmhouse?  A McMansion?

Certain houses from my memory evoke that feeling of "coming home."  As I crest the first hill of the long driveway and my grandmother's farmhouse comes into view, my soul floods with a sense of peace, that sense of "I'm home."

My generic townhouse on my quiet suburban street in my generic suburban town doesn't evoke that same sense of "I'm home." It's just a building with four walls and a hefty mortgage.

But what makes a house feel like a home?  Why don't I feel that "I'm home" connection the way I do with my grandmother's farmhouse?  Is it the memories associated with it?

Lately, I think I've been so preoccupied with looking elsewhere that I haven't paid attention to what I've got.  I have great neighbors, a quiet, safe street.  And even though I can't grow a garden in the backyard because of a lack of physical space and the lack of southern exposure, I can grow tomatoes in containers on the deck, which gets enough sun.  Lettuce likes shade and since I've got plenty of that, I can grow that too.

And this house has memories for Joseph and I beyond that it's our first house that we bought.  This is our boys' first home.  Wherever they end up on life's journey, their first childhood memories will be from here and they will remember it always.

So even though I still imagine myself writing in a little sunny room of an old, creaky farmhouse with a verandah, surrounded by rolling hills of pasture, what I've got ain't so bad.  I need to appreciate my house, the life I've forged with Joseph and the boys. Be grateful for what I have.  Right now.  In this moment.    

A tribute to Joseph

Once upon a time, this is where I imagined myself living.  I also imagined myself married to a big ol' farm boy who would tolerate my penchant for reading and writing but not insist that I, you know, work on the farm.

(Photo courtesy of morgueFile. Thank you.)

This is what I got instead:  a generic townhouse in a quiet neighborhood on a tree lined street.  I can't see the horizon because of the trees (which I'm grateful for.  I'd rather not see the horizon because of the trees instead of other buildings or smog or both. I digress.).

You see, I had Big Ideas and Big Plans, once upon a time (like the last century.  Think about that, dear gentle reader. The last century!). My Big Plans were to go to Frostburg State University in western Maryland, then keep on moving west after graduation. I wanted to get lost out there in the vastness of the wide open space and find myself. Or lose myself.

Then along came Joseph.

I stumbled into Joseph, who interrupted my Big Ideas, my Big Plans, at least in part.  I still graduated from FSU in western Maryland.  But that's where the Big Ideas, the Big Plans stopped.  I didn't find myself in the vastness of some not so populated state west of the Mississippi River after graduation.

Instead, I found love right where I was.  With Joseph. In Maryland. 

I can't say the exact moment I fell in love with Joseph.  It just kind of happened: a slow, stumbling into it, really.  By the time I realized I was in the thick of it, there was nothing left to do but accept it.  I'm not sure how I managed not to screw it up. Or crush it.  (Living with me ain't easy, let me tell you.)

Here's the thing I've learned over fourteen years of marriage: Yeah, it takes love, but it also takes equal parts compassion and forgiveness.  So that when our disagreements stretch into several days of not speaking to one another except to communicate about the neutral topic of our boys, Joseph and I trust that we can wade through that disagreement with compassion and forgiveness to rediscover the love that's been there the entire time.

Happy Anniversary, Joseph, my Beloved.