There’s No Place Like Home

My family and I are really fortunate in a lot of ways. One way is that we really like our house. It’s completely comfortable for us. It works. Of course if I had a bigger budget we could do a lot of things to it to improve it, and of course there are fancier, larger, differently-situated houses that we might enjoy more, but basically, it feels good when we walk in the door at the end of the day and are home. Home for the evening, home for the afternoon, no need to go out again. Home. We come in, take off our shoes, and unload Ax’s backpack from school at the kitchen table. We examine the uneaten contents of his lunchbox and discuss. We read and discuss the one-page news of the day his teacher writes up for us.

Then he’s off to build something out of something and I’m hanging out nearby, available but not hovering. We’ll chat a bit while he builds spaceships or imagines firefighting and rescuing scenarios with his fleet of vehicles. Or he’ll get deep in the zone and I’ll get on my phone texting even though I read a book that said that was bad.

If I let us, we can go like that pretty contentedly for hours. Sometimes though, much less these days than it used to be, but still sometimes I get a bee in my bonnet that we should be doing something more – going to the beach, playing catch, de-cluttering everything, hosting, attending, baking. Or that I shouldn’t be just sitting around like a mama lion, watching and intervening lightly when called. I should be writing a world-changing novel while sitting there, or day trading socially-responsible stocks, or teaching him Mandarin or Spanish, or, or, or.

But then I return home, return to gratitude, return to peace. We are okay. I am okay. I chose this life, this way, and it’s okay. We don’t have the most stuff or the biggest house but I have time to watch my child grow up. I am living the big life I want, and in some ways it’s quite small. I have time to take care of myself, my family, my community.

Some moments, some days, I’d like to do more or be more or have more. When those thoughts crop up it’s best for me to stop, pause, and think about what part of me really wants that. Usually it’s Evie just doing her thing. I do enough, I have enough, I am enough. I’m going to keep going. I’m home.