Making a Home, For Good

I've been home for 9 days and - thank the good saints - I finally was able to sleep like a normal human being last night. I was
O-U-T last night at 10pm and fell asleep with all my jewelry on and my cell phone in my right hand. Don't ask me who I was on the phone with because, as Nick has been describing, "You were so tired, I don't even know if you knew your own name."

Well, I do know my own name. Now.

We had a lovely housewarming party on Saturday and it was a glorious day with lots of sunshine in and out of the house. Tom and Katie Ward tromped into our new digs all the way from Cincinnati, as did my former roomies Claire Mugavin and Lea Minniti Shephard. A nice XU reunion for all as Pete Kosoglov stopped in, just back from Scotland. My brother and sister were able to make it with their significant others and family and lots of Nick's wonderful co-workers stopped by for a few hours to enjoy our newly blessed home and table of Filipino, Hawaiian, Italian, and American foods.

Truthfully, as wonderful as our new home is, it's still extremely odd for me to wake up in this new place. "Home" before my trip was a highrise apartment in downtown Boston. But, here are my clothes, my robe, and all my books neatly arranged in little folds in Shaker Heights, Ohio as if I've been living here for quite some time. I have no memories here, but all my things are hung as if I've hung them myself. My shoes are arranged as if I left them in my closet. It's a strange feeling. Like I have amnesia and everyone keeps saying, "Welcome Home!" and I have no idea what this house is all about just yet. I'm not used to its noises or the way the cabinets swing open or the creepiness of a dark basement.

Sunday evening, Nick and I went down to Columbus to spend time with his siblings. Kelly, his sister, is getting married in a little over two weeks and it was a nice opportunity to spend quality time before a big event like a wedding. As exciting as they are, as emotional as they can be, weddings are not exactly the time to talk for long periods of time. So we relaxed by a BBQ and caught up. I fell asleep on a couch and while I was asleep, everyone else has decided to move on to a bar to end the evening. I cannot convey how disoriented I was when I woke up after a 4 hour nap to find a completely dark room and a TV the size of a garage door in front of me that was "on" but the screen was black so all I heard were stranger's voices. Talk about intense confusion, I didn't know if I was in Boston, the Philippines, or in Shaker Heights, Ohio. I was right on the fourth try, "Oh, right...we're in Columbus today."

So life continues to become more and more familiar to me as we settle and make this house our home, a place we will be staying for awhile. I marvel at the small things - seeing the orange plastic wrapped Plain Dealer laying in our driveway, the blooming flowers, and the breeze through our windows. Eleven addresses in eleven years makes one grateful for the steadiness of home. Nine weeks in another country makes one ecstatic to be able to call this blessing a "home."