WARNING: This blog might not make sense to most people. Sorry 🙂
Okay, so I have been thinking about home to an unhealthy extent lately. I assume it is a mixture of having wifi accessible at all times here in India and the fact that I conveniently got incredible wifi during the holiday season. As I have been thinking of home, I realized that I have never talked about it on my blog. Yes, I understand that most of you that read my blog know me personally and have physically been to my house. I am sure many of you could even list off a few fun facts about my home if I asked, but none of you feel the same way I do about it. It is impossible.
As I have been making these different places my home for a couple of months now, I have really learned to appreciate the home where I grew up. I have been very blessed to have lived in one house my entire life. Plenty of people spend their childhoods moving from house to house and have had their memories spread out over multiple different plots of land, but I lucked out in that department. All of my memories of home have been collected under the same popcorn roof. I have memories of waking up on Christmas mornings far too early and making my way to Joseph or Emily’s room to let them know that Santa had come. I remember as I got older, I would stay up to help Santa put presents under the Christmas tree because Santa and I live on similar sleeping schedules. I remember how excited we were as they dug out a hole in the back yard and later filled it with water and I remember how funny it was watching that same hole filled with dirt years later because cows kept falling in and ripping the pool liner. I remember walking through the woods behind the house with Joseph and getting irritated when I wanted to go back home but couldn’t because I didn’t memorize the woods like he did. I remember running around in the puddles in the front yard because it floods when it rains. I remember the nasty slimy things at the bottom of the water that would get caught between our toes, but wouldn’t slow us down.
We drove the four wheeler up and down the hills in the pasture and yelled at one another about who had to get off and open and close the gate. We ate pears out of Aunt Linda’s tree in her yard in-between building houses out of Lincoln logs and playing Mahjong on her computer. We engraved tire tracks into the dirt road and around the chicken houses only for them to be washed away the next time it rained. We jumped from hay bail to hay bail despite the fact that I still to this day cannot get on top of one on my own. We huffed and puffed about having to go up to the barn to wash the cows or walk them (I did, anyway) but loved to get out of school early on Fridays to go to cow shows.
I walked into the kitchen late at night far too many times only to find Emily eating an entire box blueberry muffin mix. I have managed to make almost every single room in the house my bedroom, including the living room after I had surgery and the middle bathroom during tornadoes. I remember when my current bedroom was the dining room and when Emily and I were forced to share a room. I remember how mad I was when mom and dad decided to humble themselves and give Emily the big bedroom but decided that they had humbled themselves enough and when she moved out and didn’t let me have it. (Still a little salty, but its fine.) As I got older, I became more interested in helping mom cut the okra and I reminded her countless times how much I didn’t like corn. I think the face my dad makes at the sight of english peas will forever be engraved into my mind, and I don’t think I have seen the floor of the laundry room long enough to give you any details about it. (Sorry, mom.)
I remember having to pretend that I was asleep as my parents were waking up in the mornings because they would yell at me if they knew I hadn’t been to bed yet. I remember waving at granddaddy every single morning as we passed him on the way to school and the confusion we felt if he wasn’t there. I remember how my grandmother shows up at random hours of the day and I am greeted with a quiet knock on the door and then a couple seconds later, the words, “Hello!? Bailey Belle, you home?” The back of my dad’s bathroom door has misspelled words on it because I thought it would be cute to write a note using big words that I couldn’t spell and inside of the closet doors all have the words “I love insert name of boy I dated for less than 24 hours at the age of eleven” written on them. I remember sneaking out of my window more than once and then not leaving the front yard because I was twelve and didn’t have anywhere to go. (I thought that was cool, okay?) I remember when I could drive that I would get locked out of the house because I got home too late and then having to climb in through Joseph’s window because no one would answer the phone. We went through a countless number of dogs, including a chihuahua. (Couldn’t tell you how mom convinced dad to get a chihuahua.) Most of those dogs came into our home because my sister picks up a stray dog every other week.
When I think of home I think about going to nana’s and all of the children immediately making their way to their designated cousin (mine is Sarah.) I think about the fact that Courtney and I have made ourselves a home at Sarah Kate’s house, (my best friends) and how we often show up unannounced or stay over for three days at a time and how that family has taken us in as their own. I think of driving down the road blasting a musical with Kate and having to turn down the radio when Courtney has had enough of Hamilton and wants to talk about a puppy she saw. I think about the Wilson family or the other Hammett’s and how much they put up with me and are willing they are to give up their time when I need them to. I think of the way my dad’s bathroom smells like toothpaste and Copenhagen and I think of the mud that is permanently attached to his shoes. I think about my brother telling me about his new spurs or reminding me how dumb I am for not understanding a cowboy term. I think of my sister and all of the boys that she has brought to the house over the years and how thankful I am that she finally found Evan. I think of Tanner (not my brother, but my brother) and how he comes and goes as he pleases. Sometimes, I tell people I have two brothers to make it easier when I have to explain to someone who Tanner is. I think about mom standing in the kitchen screaming and then laughing because she gets popped by the grease as she cooking and I think about the way that she squeezes her eyes really tightly, crinkles her nose stares at the lights on the ceiling when she has to sneeze. I think about my mom making hotdogs, ketchup and coke and yes I do understand that the only people who don’t think that sounds disgusting is my family.
I guess the reason I wrote all of this is to say that I miss home, understandably so. I have learned that home for me, is not in a place. Home is found in people. It is found in the people that love me the most. The people who I share both good and bad memories with, but have somehow managed to make me focus on the good. I have found family in my blood and in my friends and most recently in my teammates. I have made memories with them just like I make back in Alabama and despite the fact that we cannot make twenty years worth of memories like I have been able to make with the people I grew up with, we have made memories that will last a life time. I am so thankful for them, and I am also incredibly thankful for a home that makes being away so hard. Love you, fam. xoxo, Belle.
Ps. Feel free to tell me what home means to you in the comments. That makes me happy.
