The Idea of Home

Home is where the heart is.  Home is where the Air Force (Army, Navy, Marines) sends us.  The idea of home has been on my mind lately. In a blog post the other day, a friend of mine related the following story that she had read in Readers Digest:

A travel-tired little girl lay on a pile of suitcases in an airport while her military daddy saw to the details of yet another flight. A nearby woman sized up the situation and remarked, "You poor dear. You don't have a home, do you?" The little girl sat up and replied, "Yes, we do. We just don't have a house to put it in right now."

I love that response! Being "houseless" seems to be a common occurrence with military families. You clean your house, turn in the keys, and check into temporary housing (basically a hotel). You get to your new base and check into temporary housing until they have a house for you.  You learn to keep "home" with you. 

So, that's what started my most recent reverie on home. Then, I found this beautiful quote in the book I was reading.

"Here's the thing about home:  you can create it most anywhere, as long as you gather your people around you."- Shannon Hale, Midnight in Austenland

That is why Washington will always be home. It is where so many of "my people" are...the people who have known me the longest. We moved a fair amount when I was growing up. Not because we were a military family, Dad is just genetically predisposed to itchy feet. Sometimes I wonder if there might be some Gypsy blood in the Heinz 57 sauce that is the Shapley lineage.  But even with the hardest move (the summer before high school), I don't remember ever feeling like I wasn't at home. We were together as a family and, ultimately, that's all that really mattered.

It is also why I've been able to pick up and move every 3-4 years since we've been married.  I have my wonderful husband and our little people, so it doesn't matter where we end up. Each move is difficult, but it's also exciting (perhaps the Shapley blood helps). 

In the last 12 years, we have set up our home in Spring, Texas; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Abilene, Texas; and Adana, Turkey.  When we're finished here, our home will be....wherever the Air Force sends us. We'll pack it up and take it with us because that's what we do.