Coming Home

It's been a year since I bought my house.  It felt like it took forever but finally, the papers were signed, the boxes packed and we moved out of one house and into the other.  Truly, we moved around the corner and across the street.
Every time I talked with someone they would say "Oh, you live in the Wrye's house."  And I always replied, "No, the Wrye's used to live in the Marcotte house."  But really, it was still the Wrye's house.
This was the house that they raised their babies in, where their children learned to walk, where they celebrated Christmas and birthdays, where they entertained their friends.  This was the house that they Wrye's built.  They chose the flooring and the kitchen cabinets, they picked the paint colours and the wall paper.  They planted the flowers.
My house - that was still across the street and around the corner.  Joel and his family moved into it.  They needed more space, for twins, a little girl and a new baby on the way.  Joel and family live in my house now. The house where my babies were born, where they learned to walk and talk and ride bikes and climb trees.  The house where I painted the walls and installed hardwood floors.  The house where I hung the picture of my dad on the wall.  The house where we buried our dog and our cat right in the middle of the backyard and put up little crosses. The house where we laughed and cried and played.   I wonder, does Joel and family feel like they are living in the Marcotte house?  I wonder, when they tell someone where they live, if they call it the Marcotte house?
So Joel moved into the Marcotte house, my house.  I moved into the Wrye house and the Wrye's moved across town.  We all got new houses. But did any one of us get a new home?   How long does it take to begin to feel like my home and not the Wrye's house?
Just recently, I went away for a week, had a great adventure, enjoyed the sun and the sand and the palm trees.  I collected shells on the beach, drove the Mustang with the top down, para-sailed over the ocean, and went skinny dipping in that ocean... then it was time to come home.  Home, really?  Well, back to New Hampshire, back to the Wrye's house.
When I got home at 3 am, my dog was silent.  Not a bark, yet when I walked through the door, I was greeted with joyous wiggles.  I crawled into my bed, you know, the one I bought after the divorce.  I woke to the sun streaming through the window and my cat purring on my feet.  I landed in my kitchen, where there are the pictures my mother drew hanging on the wall, where I have a cupboard just for tea.  I listened to the church bells chime, watched the sun on the river.
All of a sudden I realized that I am home, really home.  This may be the house that the Wrye's built, but it is full of the people that I love.  They may have hung the wall paper, but my dad's picture is hanging on that wallpaper.  They may have picked out the kitchen cabinets, but my children's artwork is displayed on top of those cabinets.  They may have installed the fancy oven, but I use that oven to feed my kids every day.
I felt like Dorothy, from the Wizard of Oz.  There's no place like home.  And when I go looking for my heart's desire, I don't need to look any further than my own back yard.  It may have taken more than a year, but finally, I have come home.