Ask a military kid where they're "from" and they'll tell you where they were born. Even now, in my thirties I can't really say I'm "from" Buffalo, although I think of it that way. I'll say I graduated high school in Buffalo, which is as close as I'll get.
My parents moved away from Buffalo the summer before my senior year of college. The house I'd called home for 7 years was sold, bought by a family with young kids, a place to grow up in. My sister and I were already in college. My parents moved into a house in Amsterdam, NY eventually, following my dad with a new job in that area. I know there was some kind of holdup between moving out of our house in Buffalo and moving into the one in Amsterdam, but I wasn't a part of it. For the first time in my life, I was given the choice not to move, and I took it. While my mom, dad, sister, and our 90 lb golden retriever shared a small apartment somewhere near the new house (waiting for the residents to move out), I stayed with my Gramma. My gramma and step-grampa lived in a house on Lake Erie, and offered to let me stay with them for the summer. I had a temporary job for the summer, I had my longtime high school boyfriend, I had my friends. I had the choice to stay. Buffalo was my home.
The longest "home" I had had nothing to do with my family. An army brat's motto is "home is where your stuff is." When I first moved in with Bob we were two friends who loved hanging out together trying to save some money. Over time we became inseparable.
When I was contemplating moving to find another job in 2011, he asked me to be his girlfriend. He was afraid I'd move away and forget about him, that we'd never see each other. I was his only girlfriend. A year later we married in a state park, surrounded by friends and family on the last day of summer.
When we finally moved out of that apartment we'd added to our family, with a dog and two daughters. Paige was a month old, and Charlotte was two years old. We'd lived there for 9 years, far longer than I'd lived anywhere.
"Oh you're not going to miss this place," my gramma repeated as she visited with family after the birth of Paige. We'd planned on moving when they visited, but the mortgage talks were disrupted when I was in the hospital. Hearing her repeat it had the opposite effect- while I wanted to get into the new house, I was starting to feel sad about leaving the house Bob and I had been in for so long. All the memories flooded my emotions.
Until I sat nursing Paige in our bed an early morning/late night and a bat swooped from somewhere and flew over my head, dive-bombing me and my weeks old child. Peace the fuck out, house.
Bob never made me feel guilty about my itchy nomadic feet and restless nerves.
It became a well-meaning joke when he caught me staring intently in a room, sizing up the walls and eyeing the furniture. We wouldn't be moving, but I felt the need to seriously redecorate. "How many rooms is it going to take this time?" he'd sigh, then hold up a hand as he stood up from the couch."Hold on, let me get a beer first."
Redecorating isn't nearly as much fun alone.
He never asked why I couldn't just be happy when I battled depression.
He never seriously told me to go to sleep when I had insomnia.
He never told me to get over it and move on when I had anxiety.
He showed me my "flaws" weren't flaws. He loved my crazy. And consoled me that my crazy wasn't even that crazy- I had just been told I was too much for too long.
In that house, he showed me I was loved as me. I was loveable as me.
He wouldn't be scared away when I came home seething mad from a hard day at work. Instead, he would wrap my hands in boxing tape and stand in the doorway nursing a beer while I yelled and punched my solid wooden headboard.
He wouldn't shy away or get mad as I sobbed over an exes engagement. He would hold me as I worked through my confusion and hurt feelings, not wanting to be engaged to my ex but processing the information in the dark of the night. Bob knew my feelings weren't showing I wanted to end our relationship.
I was wrong with my motto- home isn't where your stuff is.
Home is where your love is.
When you're a kid, that's your family- mom, dad, brothers, sisters, and pets. As you move out on your own it changes- friends, partners, job, but still pets. You move away from what you made a home as a child to make your own in the world. You begin to attach to a new place that aren't attached to the old.
I've lived in this house for 4 years. My memories include infant cries. Chemo treatments. Family parties. Renovations. Babies walking. First days of school. First days as a solo parent. Zoom meetings. Quarantine. Losing Bob. Adding Riker.
This is my home. The house was Bob and my's dream, years in the making. But in this house I've built a home for my family. I can't give my children the experience of sleeping in my childhood room like we can when we visit Bob's parents. Which house would I choose to share the room with them? I have more than 11 to choose from.
But I can give my daughters a home to love, feel safe in, and remember- mom, dad, sisters, and pets.
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