Reflection: There are "Houses" and There are "Homes"

It takes a while to turn a ”house” into a ”home.”

In this extremely mobile society in which we live it often holds true that we don't even get to spend enough time in each place we live to actually call it a ”home.” Sure, we put our stuff in it, and recognize that this is where we ”live,” but some months or a couple of years later we're on our way to somewhere else.

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What's at the end of YOUR rainbow?

Mrs. Denmarkguy and I have been living in this house for 10 years now and it's finally starting to feel like it's actually ”home.”

Is difficult to determine when the actual moment happens where a house becomes a home; for me it has something to do with realizing but you've reached the point where you would actually feel sad if you were having to leave. I think it also has something to do with reaching a point where your attachment to where you're living — that is, your home — starts to factor into your decision as to whether or not you would move somewhere else for an opportunity.

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I look around, and see all the things that we have done here. The experiences we've had; the changes we've made; the things we've built; all the effort we've put into taking something that was just a house we bought and sincerely making it ”ours.”

Memories have been made here.

We built our vegetable garden. Once, we had a family of stoats living in the crawl space between the lower and upper level. We built our labyrinth here. We started multiple home businesses here. And we keep working on the place pretty much every day.

At times I start recognizing that I'm not as good as I'd like to think I am at the Buddhist practice of non-attachment!

Memories are funny things. I realize, as I write these words, that there have also been disappointments here. We originally bought a fairly sizable house with a large yard because we foresaw having hot and cold running grandkids through here visiting and staying. Alas, two of our kids are past 30 and one is not even in a relationship and the other is not sure that she actually wants to have kids. Our third child does have three kids but lives 2,500 miles away in Ohio. Even so, we have no desire to leave.

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This morning, as I was writing a few words in my paper journal, I pondered the fact that this is now the longest I have lived in one house in my life. 10 years.

The only other place I have a longer “attachment” to is what used to be my auntie’s summerhouse in Denmark... which remains in my family and it is where we stay when we go back to visit family every few years. That particular house it's been owned by someone in my family since 1939; it was part of my life when I was a small kid and as I was growing up. In some ways, I also think of it as a ”home.”

However, the thing is that we humans are all different and unique. Some choose to travel eternally, never really developing an attachment to any of the places they go to. For them, the joy — and the deeper meaning — of life is to always be seeing new places and to always move about.

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For others — such as myself — it is important to have an anchoring point; the place you know is always going to be there to return to no matter where you find yourself in the world. I think perhaps I fit in this category because we moved around so much when I was a child that it never felt like my soul could keep up with our geographic location.

And so, I feel content to be "settled" in this place which truly does feel like home.

Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your weekend!

How about YOU? Does where you live feel like HOME? What do you think is the main difference between a "house" and a "home?" Is having a sense of "home" important to you? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 20210530 01:01 PDT

0268/1511



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I never understood people who buy big houses, fill them with stuff, then spend all their spare time on "vacation" to get away from it.

I've lived in this house since 1983 and we built it all by ourselves, well except for the last 5 months, and there's no place I would rather be. When I go out for any reason, even tag sales that I like to do, I can't wait to get home again. This is my happy place.

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