Home

Wiley has started "preschool"/daycare at Canterbury. He has done well given that it is his first time in childcare that is not at his house. But that is not the point of this post...

We are coming back to the apartment here in B'ham to go for a walk. Wiley keeps asking for apple juice (repeatedly, of course) and I keep saying (repeatedly, of course) that we don't have apple juice in the car and he will have to wait till we get home.

And then, the thought struck me that in a couple/few years, Wiley will understand the word home. And then I pictured him saying,"Mommy, this is not home. Home is at Wake Forest." It made me think about our somewhat transient lifestyle and where my home really is.

The other week when I took Wiley to the dentist to check on a tooth he had bumped and had been bothering him I had to fill out the usual paperwork. When the line for address came, I paused. "What is my home address...should I put my parent's house, or our apartment in Winston?" This happens a lot. I often put my parent's address for important documents since we claim Alabama residency still, but that is not where I live. Wil puts his parent's address when he fills out the address line in forms. My husband and I don't even put down the same address sometimes! How bizarre!

So, I'm still thinking about this. The fact that I'm not sure where I should hang my hat, so to speak. The fact that I hang it in W-S mid August- mid December and again from mid January to the beginning of May. In December I hang it at 2 houses. In the summer I hang it at another apartment.

I always tell Wil, I just can't wait to have my own front porch. I can't wait to not have to walk down 3 flights of stairs to go play outside. I don't care if I actually have a front porch, but it would be nice. I think I just would really like to not have to hesitate when I am filling out forms that have the dreaded line of "address." And you know they all have those!

So as I am thinking this, I realize how ungrateful I am being. Here I am, driving a really nice car down a beautiful road, with a healthy boy in a really safe carseat in the back who has just come from a wonderful childcare center at the church I grew up in. I'm coming "home" to an amazing apartment that a gracious family is letting us stay in for the summer (saving my sanity, at the same time!) that is in a safe neighborhood. Moreover, I have listed in my head and here FOUR places that I could call "home." Four. Four places to hang my hat. What about those families, those mothers who don't know where they will hang their hat tonight? What about those who call a homeless shelter "home?"

I am so lucky, so blessed, to have these four places to call "home." I know that my feelings about having a permanent address are real, that they are okay to feel, and that anyone with a family, particularly the mom, has those feelings--the need to settle, to nest. But at the same time, I want to remember to thank the Lord that I have a home, no matter how temporary it may be. I know that I need to remind myself to be at peace in the place I am in right now, to be thankful for what has been given--because I certainly did or do anything to deserve any of it.

So, until the day that I have my own front porch, I will hesitate at the address line, but from now on, I hope that when I hesitate I will thank the gracious Lord that I have four places, four shelters, four safe places, that I can call "home."