Tuesday, June 3, 2014

I'm currently relaxing in a hotel suite in the 'burbs while hubby is in work training. He's here through Wednesday, and since I was able to get a couple days off, I decided to join him here last night for a little getaway. I'm sipping coffee and practicing Spanish on Duolingo, an app recommended to me by my multilingual nephew, who graduated high school on Sunday. He's already learned two languages, is currently learning a third, and plans to learn even more! A lot of it's thanks to good schooling, but he also does a lot in his spare time (as evidenced by the bookshelf full of language learning material he showed me Saturday following his graduation party). He does this for fun, people! He paid his own way to France last year (where he stayed with a host family), wants to backpack around Europe next summer, and eventually wants to live abroad and work as an interpreter. He has more ambition than a lot of kids his age, even more than most adults!

Anyway, I had a revelation last night as I was lying in bed: I feel more at home here than I do in my own home. Then it occured to me that I felt that way at the last hotel we stayed at, too. I think I like this room so much because of its size. It's small. It's enough. As I've said before, it's become painfully obvious that while I love the house we bought last year, it's just too big for us. I find I'm forcing myself to use rooms we don't normally use just so they don't sit unused. I miss being a few steps from everything. I miss the coziness of being in separate rooms, yet knowing your significant other is only a short distance away if you need them. I miss the ease of maintenance. Also, the dogs don't know it, but they'd be better off in a smaller house, too. While both have mastered the massive staircase, I worry that they're both going to take a tumble one day. One story was all we needed. WHAT WAS I THINKING??? Our house is this big old cavernous thing, and because most of it isn't carpeted, there's nothing to absorb the noise. So everything--every step, every breath, every bark--is extra loud.

I'll be sad to leave here, just like I'm sad to leave every new place I visit. I'm still waiting for our new(ish) house to feel like home. What is 'home' other than a safe place to spend your non-working hours and rest your head at night? Maybe I'm assigning a deeper-than-needed meaning to it. Maybe hubby's utilitarian approach is the right way of looking at things. His response, for example, when I express an interest in decorating the bedroom to be a sort of oasis or escape, is: 'It's where we sleep at night. No one else sees it anyway.' 'That's not the point,' I tell him. But maybe he's onto something.

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