They've owned it since I was eight. Moving there was terribly exciting. Yard space, trees, badminton court, patio, large open spaces, much better than the rentals we'd lived in until then.

We didn't stay long -- my childhood was marked with abrupt moves, but they didn't sell the house in our absence. Returning, in my twenties, was like every delayed return. So small. Dingier. Strange.

Not my home, anymore, but still theirs. They've ripped out my memories from the eighties, relaid and repaved and repainted. It shines and it beckons -- but to them now, not me.

Cindy, if you want to break open in here, I'm sure no one would mind. :)

ita, deb, I'm glad you liked it. Doing these is making me a critical editor. I write it, then I go back and try to make it shorter and better. And it usually ends up going in a different direction. The he/she repetition happened naturally in the first part. I saw it, thought "Woah, did I just do that? And can I do it again?" So I cut the whole last part, and replaced it with the same scheme, and it was SO much better.

By the by, the lighthouse, cape, and Pahoa are all real... the things you find when you Google "hawaii 1934"!

P.S. ita, it hurts so good.

Wonderful, ita. That's the stuff I can't seem to let out.

Ailleann, thanks. I have about 4 MS Word documents saved, each different, each unfinished. I was conceived there. Sometimes, sitting here, I say I want to go home. I mean I want to go there.

I never had that place, as a house. Even though I've lived in the same town, there've been many houses and apartments. That was why I thought I wanted to buy a place and stay, but now... I'm not so sure I did right.

So, this home drabble? I can't do it.

I can't either. I mean, I could, but it's too hard. I never had that, because we moved too much, but wanted it so very much. Even now, I don't want my folks to leave the house they're in till they're dead, because I need...something. Somewhere. And we don't own yet, and may not for some time.

"Home" is hugely loaded for me, and very emotional. And I'm a little too close to the edge this week anyway to attempt writing about it.

Loving everyone else's, though.

I have to remind myself that assuming my mother goes before I do, it would be 20 times harder for me to empty out that house, than whatever condo she buys.

erika, I think it makes sense from a financial POV, if nothing else. Owning doesn't mean you can't leave.

I never had that, because we moved too much, but wanted it so very much

We moved around a lot, too. As a result, I've never associated "home" with a physical structure. Home is a feeling of belonging even when the people you are mad at you; where people love you even if they don't like you so much right then; where they will always let you use their toilet and eat their food; but mostly, it's always been where my mom is. The sound of her voice, the way she rarely sits still, the smell of her cooking.

Even at 37, I still equate "home" with "Mom." But over the past 5 years or so, my apartment has also become "home" to me in a different way.

I long ago came to the realization that I could cope alone. Life without Amy or Hubby would be much less of a life, but as the expectation of security has fallen away from my life, it's been replaced by a sort of stoic endurance.

I'm happiest in various places, but I hold no certain hope of ever getting to live there. It's all come back to one thing: Home is me.

It's all come back to one thing: Home is me.

connie, I think that's the exact place I'm well on my way to.

Home is a feeling of belonging

This is true for me, on a lot of levels, but I grew up with a real fear of death, too. Of abandonment, I guess. I think I've always wanted the security of that one physical structure where all the tangible evidence of lives gone would be -- and somewhere safe to stay, to hide if necessary, to put down my own roots if I wanted to. To shelter the people that made up "home" for me.

Clearly, more psychoanalysis is necessary.