A house is not a home

 

I am not sure if I mentioned this in one of my previous posts, but I am not originally from this town. I was born and raised in Ohio, as for my husband? Europe {lucky him!} When we first started dating, he and I lived within a half hours drive to my home town. Once it was time to “settle down”, 9/11 had pasted, and it was a little tough finding a job for two fresh-faced, just-graduated kids. My husbands college helped him to find a job... lucky us. But as you might have realized, everything has an up side in life, and a down side as well. Although it didn’t bug my husband too much, we needed to move quite a distance from Ohio, and essentially, “home” for me. I remember telling my husband “but I don’t want to go up there.. I don’t know where the nearest dry-cleaner is {how often do I need that}, or the difference between grocery stores” {we all have the “nice grocery” & the other one we get our “bulk stuff”} He didn’t understand me at the time. Zoom forward two apartments and two jobs later. We got married and bought a house… I was, however, still lonely, and couldn’t put my finger on it. Only then did I come to the realization of the importance of community. In short, I knew which store to buy my produce & meat, and which to buy my “box” items at, but that didn’t help me pick up friends! Let’s be honest now, how easy is it to walk up to a perfect stranger, in a perfectly nice town and say “Do you want to be my friend?” After all we are not in Elementary school. I had a co-worker tell me that things would work themselves out once I had kids… {not that I am having kids to make friends mind you!}. As all of us women do, I took it with a grain of salt and moved along in my life. Now that we are past our five year mark in our house, and we have two beautiful and lovely girls…now that we have friends to call on, and know the activities around the area, I feel like we are finally settling into this little city. Sometimes I feel like I’d love to move back to Ohio, but then I really it’s just nostalgia setting in. I know a house doesn’t make a home, but a family & a house does. I am starting to feel a part of this town and community more and more each day… I find this a good thing, because this is where my daughters will be calling home for the rest of their lives.