My Home Address

Who am I? At my very essence, at the core, who am I? So often we are identified by whom we love, what work we do, the house we inhabit, someone’s name on the label of our clothes. I get lost in these trappings all too often and find myself, again, re-naming, re-claiming my selfhood.

I lost myself most completely in my early twenties. I had to forget who I was, had to be small in order to make someone else feel bigger. I chose to relinquish control over myself because I was so busy trying to control this other person. I was the poster child for co-dependence and I didn’t even know it. In trying to make this unworkable relationship work, we bought into the trappings of what married life looks like. We bought the house, had a child, and merged our names, assets, and futures. I knew it was a lie all long. We were too different, too ill-matched, but we tried.

About the time I turned 25, I began to slowly emerge from the denial and haze of a dying relationship. I realized I would be fine without marriage, without a ring on my finger that validated me and made me feel that someone wanted me, but I couldn’t seem to let go of the house we had purchased together. It was my first home, where I brought my baby home from the hospital, where we had birthday parties, where we had family get-togethers. Memories lived in the walls and had trapped me with them.

One night I had a dream that I had once again locked myself in the bathroom and was crying after an argument. While I watched myself, curled arms over bent knees, sobbing over a failing relationship, I noticed the walls around me had faces. These faces laughed at me, taunted me. They told me with their laughter that staying for them was preposterous. They had watched everything that had occurred in that house and staying was laughable.

I remind myself of this lesson frequently because it was seminal in discovering who I want to be. Now, I do love my house, but I’ve made peace with the fact that it truly is not mine. It’s on a borrow basis. A tornado can come through and rip it to pieces. A fire could burn it to the ground. My husband’s job could determine that we must move. And even worse, but yet a possibility I will never let myself forget less I forget the lessons learned in my twenties, this is a house I get the privilege of living in because my husband is a good provider. It is truthfully only on borrow basis to him too.

As I visited with my sister’s friends in Portland, many of them encouraged us to move up there. Yes, I would fit in well there. I would be part of majority, a group of like-minded, wonderful people. And, if things were different, I could see it as a possibility for home—BECAUSE—I now know that home is where I am. I carry my home with me, in my heart, in my memories, in my mind. Home is where my family is. It is where I can love and be loved. It is where I smile and breathe deeply. It is not brick and mortar, cement and stone, geography and landscape.

I am home right now, in dry West Texas, with her beautiful sunsets and lovable, loving people. I am home in Portland with my self-proclaimed “granola hippy” sister and her friends. I am home in Austin with my soul sisters. I am home in this wonderfully flawed, lived-in, stretched and loved body that is only mine on loan. My address is just a technicality.

Being home and at peace gives me even more appreciation for the present because it forces me to realize that every material thing is transitory. Every night in this house is a blessing, every pair of shoes a gift, every trip to the grocery store an honor. I am leaning into and onto the promise that I am more than an address, a title, a name brand. I am home no matter where I roam. I am a child of the Divine no matter my flaws. So to answer the question that began this rambling: who am I? I am Complete, and I rejoice that every day gives me the opportunity to grow even more fully into my homespun self.

Peace and Love.