My drive home tonight was slow and foggy. The steam rising off the ground made it hard to see, and my glasses were waiting for me on top of the microwave at home. The rain was falling on a slant, and the feeling that a misty, early spring rain brings, engulfed my brain. Tonight it finally hit me. Though we have been living like gypsies (squatters/nomads) for three weeks, our first little starter home in Scotia is officially a closed chapter in our book of life. It’s in the rear view. And as happy as I am to finally and officially be out of Schenectady County, I couldn’t help tonight, but to feel the bitter inside the bittersweet. 

It was the first house I ever lived in with anyone but my parents. I remember the first few weeks feeling so lonely, no roommates, only one dog, and just the busy city streets that surrounded me. I wouldn’t go in the basement after dark, and there were nights I wouldn’t watch TV because I was home alone and commercials for horror movies would scare me half to death. I can count on one hand the amount of times I took a bath there because then tub freaked me out. I also can count the times the fire department came to put out a firepit s’more party (no openfire in scotia GTFO). I won’t miss our nosey neighbor Shirley, or the creepy house on the corner, or the city traffic. But somewhere along all these memories, that house became our home. 

I left there a single girl one January night, and came home engaged to be married. We had birthday parties and even threw one theme party in our new home. We redid the master bedroom… For three months. (Hello 95 year old insulation.) We planted flowers, and even the kind that grow back year after year (perennials?) I mowed a lawn for the first time in my life, and discovered I loved it. Watering my flowers and plants was sometimes more therapeutic than drinking wine. I picked up stoop sitting. Drinking coffee on a quiet front porch, wrapped in a blanket in an old rocking chair on fall mornings became a quick favorite hobby of mine. I had dreams crushed and dreams come true in that house. I left that house as a Costanza, and returned home a week later, bronzed, relaxed, and excited to be Mrs. Phillips. I found out I was pregnant there. I think I peed on 5 pregnancy tests. I had my first set of contractions in my first official bed-with-a-headboard in my newly redone master bedroom, next to my beautiful husband. I left my baby girl Stella for three nights, and brought my baby boy home ever so carefully one mild spring day. (The day Stella became a canine.) It is there I became a mother. I celebrated the last 2 years of my twenties in that house. I learned how to fight clean in that house; that running home to mom and dads was no longer acceptable to end an argument. I learned how to forgive, how to forget, and though Dan may disagree, I do believe I became less stubborn in my time on Glen Avenue. I would find any excuse for a trip to Jumping Jacks, and enjoyed the weekends I had a wedding party booked at Glen Sanders Mansion. I loved the sound of the church bells directly across the street, and the hum of Gabriel’s (and their chocolate muffins) became a comfort to me. 
Now I sit, in a temporary home, on a borrowed couch, holding my baby in my arms, as tears stream down my cheeks. As we wait for our dream home to be ready. As we wait for our new chapter to begin. As I realize that no matter what town we live in, or what color our house is, or how adorable our new wooden fence will be, or how big or small the back yard is, it’s ours. And as of 2:00, March 10th 2016, we are officially homeless, but I’ve never felt more sure of exactly who I belong to, and who belongs to me. Dan, Mav, Stella, Goose – you are my home. You are my open screen door on the first warm spring day, my favorite spot on the patio, a home-garden and hand picked tomato, my worn in cushion on the couch. You’re the familiar smell, the warmth of the windows in the summertime, and the safety of an ADT alarm system.