Notes on Home

The end-of-year holidays are upon us, and I definitely enjoyed ing the relaxing four days off of work. Unlike many of my friends, I'm staying put this year. My brother and his family live in Arlington and have decided to host the family Christmas at their house. And that's fine by me.

Over the past few weeks leading up to this holiday, nearly everyone I've talked to has asked me, "Are you going home for Christmas?" And this question always irks me. And here's why.

I grew up in Dover, Delaware, about 100 miles due east of Washington, DC. I like to refer to Dover as a "suburb of nowhere". There is no "urb" anywhere near by. It's just a tiny chunk of sprawl plopped in the middle of the giant sand bar that is the Delmarva Peninsula amidst the fields of soybeans, corn, and potatoes, the apple orchards, and the chicken houses. One indication of how "nowhere" my "home town" was: we didn't even have any local television stations. On a given evening, we could tune in "local" news from Philadelphia, Baltimore or, of all places, Salisbury, Maryland (which actually featured "grain reports" on their nightly news delivered by a man named "Scorchy"). I think we might have had one AM radio station, or maybe two.

My family moved to Dover when I was 5 years old, two days before my 6th birthday. Needless to say, we hadn't fully moved in on that awful birthday day in 1979, let alone had the chance to make any friends or meet any new people. That year, my birthday cake was from the freezer section of the local grocery store and there were few fun games and no neighborhood kids there to help celebrate. I should have taken that birthday as a sign of how well I'd fit into my new life, but I was far too young to even form such thoughts.

Over the next 12 years, I did my best to make Dover my home. It took some time, but I got connected with a group of neighborhood kids all in my grade. My parents' decision to switch me to Catholic school the year after we arrived definitely set me back a few steps in maintaining friends in the neighborhood. But by the time I switched back to the local public school in 6th grade, I had some good friends. Having a swimming pool definitely helped.

I went off to college in 1991, and my parents maintained their house in Dover for another 5 years. One year after I graduated from college, my parents decided it was time to move closer to their jobs upstate. The next thing I knew, the house was sold, my parents had moved to a new house 40 miles to the north, and my mother was handing me a cardboard box that contained all that was left of my childhood bedroom. My dresser and desk drawers were all emptied and sorted through and picked over, with anything of potential monetary or emotional value had been pulled out and tossed in that cardboard box.

It was at that moment that I realized that "home" for me no longer existed.

My parents have tried to make their new house feel like home for me, or at least they say so. Despite these efforts, I feel my parents' new house is awful. It's cheaply constructed with flimsy materials. The ceilings on the ground floor are too low, and the family room is like a dark claustrophobic cave centered around a TV which is constantly tuned to sports. The living room is sterile and decorated with white furniture and accents of fuschia and teal. (No, the furniture isn't covered in plastic. However, my mom informs me that I can't nap on the couch because it's too cheap and she's afraid it will break.) There's a half-finished basement with a pool table (not quite the same as having a pool) but it's really musty down there and spending more than 10 minutes in their basement makes me start to itch.

I guess the worst part of my parents' new house is that I don't have a bedroom. It's a 4-bedroom house, but I can't lay claim to any of them. One of the bedrooms has been turned into an office. The largest of the non-master bedrooms contains a queen sized bed (that ironically used to be mine) and a crib. My brother and sister-in-law and their baby obviously get that room when they're home. The other bedroom is what my mom calls the "grandmother room" because it's filled with her parents' old furniture, including a heavy hand-made quilt that my mom gave my grandmother for my grandfather's birthday. (Figure that one out.) Needless to say, it's not quite what I would call comfortable, and considering that my other brother has recently married, he and his wife will always get dibs on that room. That leaves me on the couch in the family room, or on a breezy, creaky cot in the study.

There is little to draw me to my parents' house. It's definitely not home, and I have no friends who live near by. And since I don't own a car, when I visit I'm stranded there for the duration of my stay, moping aimlessly from one uncomfortable room to the next. No wonder my parents' requests for visits are usually unrequited.

In the years that I've lived in DC, I've worked hard to make it home. I have a good network of friends and neighbors, a great apartment filled with comfortable rooms, and the freedom to move about from place to place via foot, bicycle or public transit. They say that "home is where the heart is" and my heart is definitely here in the District.

So, no, I'm not going home for the holidays. I'm already here.

Audience Participation Segment:

Fill in the blank. "Home is where the ________ is." Leave your submission as a comment.