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.