“Home is where your family is.”

For some people, they move around their whole childhood,and they come from split families. For others, you have that one place that will always be home. I had the best of all three of those worlds. For eighteen years, I always had that one place that was home–that one place I found comfort and stability in.

Growing up with separated parents I always had two “homes". There was my dad’s and stepmother’s house, and then there was my mom’s house. When I was not even 10-years- old yet, my mother moved houses and moved again when I was in my final two years of middle school. After that, she moved three more times– once an hour away, then five, then two. During all of these time periods, my dad’s house remained a safe haven for me.

For eighteen years, that place was home. I have so many memories there: hitting softballs in the front yard, buried four legged family members in the yard, where my dad taught me the right way to wash a car, where we had countless pool parties, learning to ride a bike down the driveway, and riding my go cart around the field. From memory to memory, I cannot drive by without a flashback going through my mind.

We finally decided to sell the house this past summer. After my father’s passing it just wasn’t the same. After twenty years I have learned the true meaning of a “home”. The house that was always there for me was home because of the family that surrounded me there. Family is what makes a house a home. Home is where your family is. As new traditions begin to form, new stable “safe havens” begin to become “home”. The house that was home to me for so long is now just a memory, as a new family begins to create their own traditions and memories there. I will forever be thankful for the house that built me.