I’m spending the night in a home that my parents spent more than thirty years occupying. It’s our family home. And yet, if they decided they wanted to move out tomorrow, I’d gladly help them pack up and move out. It’s not that I have no connection to this home. I do. I grew up in it. I’ve had a bedroom in two different rooms. It’s gone through many changes yet it still recognizable. However, my parents live in a town house. It’s part of a development. It never really had a chance to feel like a “family home” when all the homes in the neighborhood are somehow connected. Therefore, if they wanted to move out, I wouldn’t feel as much sentimental attachment to it as I would for when it’s time to move out of my home. Should I feel bad about this? No, it’s no longer my home. My parents live here. I was just their little teeny tiny tenant for several portions of my life.
I love my old house because my parents are still in it. When it’s time for them to find a one-floor two bedroom home, I’ll love that one too. This house was pretty great to me. I liked living here. But something in it always felt a little hollow to me. Like it wasn’t mine. I was just borrowing it. This sound strange to say right now, considering I live in a studio apartment where I own “shares” of the building. The difference is I don’t have my own family yet. I haven’t the need for a family home at this time. So of course I’d have more attachment to the home I’ve lived in for the past nine years, where I finally found out who I am.
It seems natural to think about where your home is on Independence Day. On July 4th, America celebrates Her beginning. The moment our founding countrymen came together and founded a country. They made it their home. But it wasn’t just their name on the contract. This was a country for all of us, one where the only colors that matter are the red, white, and blue. This was our home, and our home it shall remain, as long as we respect our fellow countrymen and uphold the laws of our land.
Unfortunately these days, there’s a lot of people out there who want to drag up the past and throw it in any old room in your home. You didn’t ask them to come in and drop their crap off at your place, and they’ve given no indication of when they’re picking it up. So it stays there, bogging you down, keeping you in a place where you have no idea how to even begin the cleaning process. There’s just so much everywhere, it’s impossible to sift through it all in one lifetime. So you let it pile up, a hoarder’s dream on repeat where the things take up so much space, your home is liable to explode.
And then when you do complain about the mess, you’re told to stop complaining. Or that you have no right to complain. Or that you’re just being ignorant. It’s all so tiresome. They shouldn’t have come in without asking, but I should have been strong enough to be able to keep them out. To defend my home, my mind, and my heart from all the nonsense that makes me so unable to deal that I want to just raze it all to the ground. To destroy one’s own home is a terrible thing, and I never want to let myself get to that point.
America is being asked to accommodate a lot of different people’s baggage lately. People who make up such a minute part of the population, it’s questionable as to how much influence they really have. At this point, I just want everyone to find their own home and leave everyone else alone. The American dream is about carving out your own little niche and settling down, doing what makes you happy. Even if you have to be in a place you don’t feel is right for you at the time, there’s always the opportunity to grow and find the right spot. Whether you’re headed to the new place alone or together is a different story altogether.
So ends another July 4th. I had a great time today. I felt a lot and I learned a lot. I can see who’s tired of the assholes out there tromping mud all over their freshly shampooed carpets. It’s getting to be so tiresome. Babies do that, not grown-ass adults. One day, this wild, rambunctious crowd is going to get blindsided when their antics stop working. We’re getting there. It’s just going to take a little bit longer. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and America still has a lot of growing up to do. We’re a young country. Give us time. Our next house party stands to be the biggest and brightest the world has ever seen.