Day 20: Going home

My family moved a lot growing up and didn't settle into the family house until I was 16 and heading out the door.  For me,  the memory of home was wherever my family was.  

I felt comfortable in a lot of places and when I traveled in my early 20s, I felt at home in Haiti and West Africa.  I was different and out of place but not really any more than I had been my whole life and in some ways those places etched into the geography of my heart in a special way because they were the places that I became me.  Where I became independent and formed my view of the world.  

Then,  I moved to Davis,  California and the whole town wrapped around me and cradled me.  For the first time in my life,  I found community.  I was among my people and I belonged.  Those days gave the word home a new definition.  It was the place you just belonged. 

Fast forward 10 years.  

We moved to Livermore and started out family.  I searched for community the way we had it in Davis, but it was elusive. We fixed up an old house and hung our pictures on the wall. We had children.  We started out business. More babies came.  The ebbs and flows of life.  Ups and downs.  I've lived here longer than anywhere.  And found another meaning for home.  It is the place you make life happen.  The place that fills your memories. 

I still call Michigan home when people ask.  My family is still there. My roots are there.  It is the wilderness that I grew up with.  The plants and animals are more deeply known.  Home is the place you know inside and out.

We bought this old house as a starter home when it was just the two of us and Eddie.  We've grown a lot as a family since then and we're pushing the limits of this small house. We've been thinking about eventually moving.  Maybe to the country where there is more space for these puppies of mine to run free.  But the process has gotten me thinking about what type of place is home. 

With all the years that have changed us,  would Davis still be home to us or was it only for that season? Is this house become a home with memories so deep that we should just stay here?  Is there a new place out there that has all these elements of home...a place where we will just fit?

I noticed in church how often we talk of God taking us home.  How one day in death,  we will finally be home. I imagine this home.... the place where our family is,  where we belong,  where things are familiar and comfortable, the place where we will be longer than anywhere else.

One day, we all go home.