To the people who move every few years, where is "home"? I lived in one place till I was 21, then moved to Utah, where I lived in a couple of apartments until I got married and we spent the next twenty years in one place. We've moved twice in the past two years, and I've realized that there's an uneasy blank spot in my head that's labelled Home.

So what do people think of as Home? How do you define it when you move on a regular basis? Hubby never had a place he called home until we got married, he was raised military and moving every couple of years was standard for him. For me, that kind of transcience is a kind of hell. He liked having one place to go back to, but he called my unwillingness to move inertia. I suppose we're both right, but I'm wondering if people possibly saner than I had a better way of coping.

So what do people think of as Home? How do you define it when you move on a regular basis?

When I was a kid, it was where my parents were. And, it really was like that until I graduated from graduate school. Now, home is where my stuff is.

I don't have a place where I grew up that I think of as "home" just places I used to live.

I have been more productive today than in...a month! I did a load of laundry, and cleaned two if my ceiling fans (boy, that was gross) did cover letters and on-line apps job-hunting stuff, and am now going to go to the grocery store!

Then I am going to go see the SatC movie with a pregnant friend.

Oh, and (girly stuff)I got my period for the first time since April! Not usually an occasion for !!! but I'm happy to know that my uterus is still working. Let's hope Le Surgery makes things a bit easier in the girly-bits monthly maintenence department.

Home is where the books and cats are.

So what do people think of as Home? How do you define it when you move on a regular basis?

When I moved literally every year for the first 6 years after college, "home" was just the label for where my stuff lived. But it didn't feel like a home.

The apartment that I most recently lived in was the one I was in for 7 years; after the first 3 or 4 years, it started to feel like home.

Now? The day I moved in with The Boy, it felt like home to me. It's a mess, it's too small, there's shit everywhere, there's pet hair everywhere even when I vaccuum every goddamn day, the kitchen is basically a hallway with no counter space -- and none of that matters. He's there, so it's home.

(And never ever, for the first 36 1/2 years of my life, did I ever think I could possibly feel that way about someone. I just assumed I wasn't wired that way.)

On a broader level, Cincinnati is home, and it's what I think of as "home" when I'm out of town. Cincinnati is where I know all the rules, how the game is played, even when it's not my game any more.

My throat, cheekbones, and eyebrows feel like they are burning. Bleh. But I am glad that I finally finished the antibiotic from getting bit the other week.

Home is generally wherever my stuff is. Now, when I first moved to Seattle, the sublet I had wasn't really "home" (granted, my stuff wasn't there), and it took a little while for this apartment to be mine, even after all my things were here, but even on a bigger scale, Seattle is pretty "home" now. DC is still "home"-ish....but even in the seven or eight months since I've left, a lot of things have changed. And I don't have my OWN place there, so...it doesn't quite count as "home". And Indianapolis, while I grew up there from 8-17, and my parents still live in the same house? Well, I am vaguely familiar with a lot of it, but not more so than a lot of other cities. I could probably lead you around Baltimore or Toronto nearly as well. Certainly around Seattle just as well. So, dunno that that's more "home" either.

I lived most of my life in and around Chicago and I still think of Chicagoland as home even though I've lived in the same place in LA for the past 7 1/2 years.

Home = my parents' house. Even though I've not lived there for most of 17 years. Not their town, mind - their house.

Then I am going to go see the SatC movie with a pregnant friend.

Just got home from seeing SatC and cried my eyes out through a bunch of the movie. Not sure why it kept pushing my buttons, but damn. I was a hot mess by the time the movie was over.