Home

So the topic of home has been on my mind a great deal lately.  Mostly the age old question.  What makes a home?

Is it simply the house in which you live?  Is it where you grew up and have a million memories from.  Is it where your family is?  Or shall we go with the cliché and say "Home is where the heart is".

The truth is, it can be any of these things and it can be none.

The reason home has been on my mind is because my husband and I are in the process of moving.  We have a lovely house.  It was built by a very wealthy man in 1917 and comes with some awesome features.  I have mahogany woodwork, walnut doors, oak floors, large closets (almost unheard of in old homes) and the pièce de résistance is a crystal chandelier in my foyer from Czechoslovakia.  It is large and beautiful and was bought at an insane price due to the fact it is in a dying town.  But I have known the entire 4 1/2 years we've lived here that it is not home.

So we had to embark on a quest to decide where home was.  We had 4 major contenders.

The first was my childhood hometown.  Small, quaint, picturesque, lovely, small, friendly, small, and did I mention small.  An average population of 900 people, small.  But a large chunk of my family still resides there and so does one of my two best friends.  There are many opportunities for employment, wonderful churches, and the cost of living is extremely reasonable.  Sounds like a no brainer, right?  Well, not so much.  Because I have as many unhappy memories of my childhood as I do happy ones.  Going to visit my parents is always done in small doses.  Not because of them, but because feelings of despondency always seem to creep up on me the longer I'm there.

So we move on to the next option.  My husband's hometown.  So very, very different from my own.  He grew up in a suburb of a major city.  Very major.  Again we have friends and family that reside in the immediate area.  Since it's so large of course there are plenty of choices for jobs, churches, and the like.  Cost of living, yeah let's just not go there.  And also, while I live big cities, I am a small town girl at heart.  I want to feel safe walking down the street late at night.  I want to take my children to the park and not be afraid of turning my back on them.  I also have anxiety.  Large cities and lots of people on a regular basis wear on my nerves.

Two down, two to go.  The next option is a small (but not super small) town in the same state my husband grew up in.  His parents moved there shortly before we got married and several years ago, so did his sister and her family.  Well, as much as I love my in-laws does anyone want to live next to theirs for the rest of their life?  Plus I have no friends there and my aforementioned anxiety prohibits me making new ones.

We're running out of options!  But wait!  There is one left.  The final option is the town I went to college in.  Nice and small without being claustrophobic.  Population of 6500.  A private Christian college where I could finally finish my college degree.  Private Christian grade and high schools (a must for us because we intend to send our children there).  A Wal-Mart, two grocery stores, movie theater, small mall, restaurants, and more.  More churches than you can shake a stick at.  And best of all, my best friend in the entire world.  Along with her husband and two adorable little boys.

You guessed it folks.  When we made our decision last fall, it was option #4.  And it really wasn't even a hard decision!  Peace just seemed to descend on me when it was finalized.  I knew in my soul that we had made the right choice.  Because I realized something (warning clichés ahead).  Home is where the heart is.  Home is where you make it.  Home is where you hang your hat.  Home is where your soul feels rested.  It is where you are accepted without judgement.  Where you go to cry, but you leave laughing.  It is where you choose it to be with the people you chose to be there.

I'm moving home.  And my heart is singing.