I went home this past weekend. For me, “home” will always be the place I grew up. No matter where my belongings rest and despite the warm and comfortable oasis I have with my own husband, it seems I will forever refer to my parents’ house, as my home.
I don’t know that I should still call my childhood house, “my home,” though–. None of my things are there. And I’m not physically or financially tied to it. Besides, the bible says, “…a woman shall leave her father and her mother and shall cleave to her husband, and they shall become one flesh…” Genesis 2:24-25.
So, as I lay awake in my childhood bedroom, next to my sleeping flesh, I conceded that although I have no physical or financial ties there, I would always be emotionally bound to my family home. That’s just the way it is. I have lots of good memories but unfortunately, those good ones could not help but to collide with some of the upsetting ones. All those conflicting emotions manifested themselves in hard-to-digest chunks–. They seemed to disagree with me all weekend. But, the punch line of the story is: my “home” made me who I am today. Without the happy and sad concoction of experiences that formed and inspired me, who knows the kind of person I might have become? Like Shakespeare wrote, the past is prologue.
The deeper question is: Did I become the woman I had designed myself to be–more than 30 years ago? I mean, right there in that room–, as a result of all that dreaming and hoping and planning–, did I turn out the way I thought I would? In retrospect, the short answer is yes. The longer response is, my adult life turned out even better than my childhood imagined one. I have everything I need in my life. And the best thing is, I’m still living and blessed with the potential to make some of those childhood fantasy dreams come true.
Dream. Write. Publish.
Write on!
The Deliberate Writer 