Tomorrow we leave for the long-awaited trip "home" to Oaxaca, and as I frantically try to remember everything I've been meaning not to forget when packing for this big trip, I am also hurrying to unpack box after box to get all the clutter put away from our move on Monday before we leave for Mexico. The moving, unpacking, and packing for our trip have really made me think about what makes somewhere "home".
During our two weeks of homelessness (AKA staying with our neighbors after being kicked out of our old apartment sixteen days before our new lease started), one of our neighbors/roommates heard me refer to "home" and asked what that word meant to me. It's a very complicated question for a young adult. Home can be the place you are from, the place you currently live, or often simply the place you are not. Being married, it is a little easier for me to answer that question, and I flippantly replied that home is wherever Aaron is... and also our stuff. :)
Well, a few days later I wasn't so thrilled to be taking all that "stuff" with me into our new apartment. Thankfully, Aaron did all of the heavy lifting on Monday, but still the last three days for me have been a marathon of unpacking. On Tuesday, I considered this new apartment "home" when I cooked our first meal on the stove top. On Wednesday, it seemed more like "home" once our clothes were all in the closets and there was no more living out of suitcases. Today, I told Aaron that a house becomes a home when every book has been put on a shelf. Now the last boxes are unpacked. Pictures are ready to be hung. Things are starting to find their way to where they now belong. However, as I break down the last box I turn to open my suitcases and pack for a trip to another one of my "homes".
And, oh, what a wonderful place I get to go home to! Vibrant green mountainsides, streets crowded with smiling people, meal after meal that fills your tummy and your soul! It's been almost four years since I've been home, and I just can't wait!
We've all heard it said "Home is where the heart is..." Well, if that's the case then my homes are fractured. My deepest home on this earth is and always will be by my Aaron's side. However, there is a home of mine at Blue Jay Corner in Kirkland surrounded by my smiling cousins; in the halls of Wheaton College where I learned to love academia; under the snowy skies of Iowa and at summertime baseball games; at Grandma's kitchen table drinking mint tea and eating bowlfuls of ice cream; reading a good book in a hammock in our backyard in Oaxaca; and on the rugged hillside of a remote town where next week I will celebrate God's goodness once again. Just because my homes are fractured doesn't break my heart. It would be such an anguish to allow my many families and homes to pull my heart apart, so instead I must somehow allow the multiplicity of home to simply increase my love and comfort in every part of this good world.
So tomorrow I start the nostalgic journey from one home to another, thankful for the incredible blessing it is to dearly love so many places and just every once in a while to go back and remember what it was like when that place actually was the place I called home.
