Home is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. As we prepare to move house for the fourth time in five years on Saturday, I’ve been feeling thoughtful, and wistfully longing for a ‘home’. A family home that is ours, somewhere that we can raise our family and make memories in, somewhere we will stay for a long time.
I started writing this post a couple of weeks ago and reading back through the draft I realised how negative it sounded. We have been so lucky over the years and have lived in some lovely places together. Each move we have made has been for the better, we’ve moved for more bedrooms, cheaper rent and better location. I have loved every single place we have lived and by the time it has come to move out, that place has truly felt like ‘home’.
For me that makes it harder to leave. Especially since Darcie was born, I feel so nostalgic and have attached so much sentiment to the places we have lived and the memories we have made there. The bungalow where we first brought her home from the birth centre, the exact spot in the living room that we put the car seat down and looked at each other overwhelmed with love, exhaustion and excitement. Her first nursery that she never actually slept in but that I found so much joy in getting ready while I waited for my baby girl to arrive. The bedroom where we spent too much time awake at 3am while I figured out how to breastfeed and Dan comforted me when I felt like I needed to give up. The garden that would always calm her down just by being in it. And this house we are in now, it has seen so many firsts. I can see the spot where she first rolled over, and where she first crawled. The stairs that she has learnt to climb, the big bathtub that she loves to splash in and all of her favourite corners to explore. She had her first solid food here, her first birthday party and her own bedroom.
I’ve always been a sentimental person, and leaving behind the physical reminder of so many wonderful memories is hard for me. That is why I have been longing for a real ‘home’, one that we won’t have to say good bye to. It’s not about the bricks and mortar but about the memories that they hold and that they remind us of on a daily basis.
The thing that I have realised is that as much as I would love to have all my memories of this current chapter of my life in one place, I am so lucky to have these memories in the first place. I am so lucky to have a beautiful baby girl and a partner who works so hard so that I can stay at home with her. We might not have a ‘family home’ but we are a family, and wherever we live always feels like home very quickly because of us. Because of our unit, with our inside jokes and our little quirks. The stupid bickering and the hysterical laughter. The family dinners and the many many bottles of whisky and wine. All of these things make us the family that we are, not the house that we live in. So I’m choosing to focus on these things instead, we’ll have our dream home one day but there’s no reason to be sad about not having it for now.
