Home

Thank you, everyone, for your kind words after my last post. I wish that I wasn't so fucking awkward in my head and saw myself the way you all see me. I love you all so much for seeing me that way.

I am in avoidance mode over here. I am avoiding packing, avoiding all of it. I am instead drinking whiskey and hoping that the packing fairy shows up tonight. Ugh. I hate. this. part. 

I moved so much as a kid. My mom and I talked about it the other night and she referred to me as a pro. I am a pro. And it still makes my heart hurt when people say, oh, I remember the phone number of the house I grew up in. Or, just any statement that refers to the house they grew up in. I really wish I had that house. The closest thing I have to that house is my Uncle's house. Which he recently sold and moved out of. That house was bought when I was a toddler. I have been going to that house my entire life. House memories are weird to me...it is that house and the condo.

The first house I remember was when I lived in Ohio briefly before my parents divorced. I remember playing kickball in the cul de sac. I remember my best friend at the time, Rita, and marrying her brother and my sister in the closet. A memory I brought up in the maid of honor speech I gave at her wedding. I remember watching the little boy across the street eat a worm because he dropped his bubble gum on it.

The next house was a rental. It was haunted, according to my family, and my racist dog attacked the mailman over and over because he was black. How do you fix a racist dog? I remember learning there was no Santa Claus and my mom trying to grow out her hair and it looking like a mullet. I remember my grandmother leaving my grandfather and finding him dead the day she served him with divorce papers. I wasn't allowed to see him. Before or after death. I wasn't allowed at the funeral.

The boy next store called me Fido, the wonder dog. I found out later he had a crush on me. I had a crush on his older brother, who mowed our lawn.

I remember laying in the hammock of the next house listening to Gravity Kills and drinking my step dad's beer. I remember stealing his cigarettes and giving them to my friends. He was too drunk to know the difference. I would have my friends over while my mom and stepdad were at work and we would do whip-its and smoke weed and drink. I was scared of my stepbrother. And so protective of my step sisters, who now hate me. I remember violence and anger and sneaking out of the house to get fucked up. I remember having a homecoming party and my best guy friend, Doug, getting the shit beat out of him on the front lawn by a guy who was so fucked up on acid he didn't know what he was doing. I remember the cops getting called and all of the "cool" guys getting arrested on my front lawn. 

I remember sneaking into the house in the middle of the night to get our stuff out of the house so my stepdad wouldn't hit my mom again. I remember my mom never being around because she was dating my now stepdad. I remember her throwing me out of the house because he said I was out of control. I remember my grandmother threatening her and getting to stay. 

I remember my first love breaking up with me in the basement. I passed out in the hallway all the time and my sister would drag me to my bedroom and throw me in bed. I remember knocking on her bedroom window so many times because I forgot or lost my key. I remember learning to cook in that kitchen. And fruit roll ups and private investigators watching us and showing up in the backyard in the middle of the night and turkey bacon and black widow spiders and dropping my favorite ring through the slats of the deck.

Home is a weird word to me. Home is where the people who love me are. This city is my home. The people who come to my house and feel at home make wherever I am my home. This blog, this space, all of you, are my home. 

I am letting go. These walls, these floors, these are not my home. My home is with the boy and my friends and my family and all of you. As fucking cheesy as it is, home is where the heart is. And my heart lies with people, not places. And I have an amazing, amazing home.