This House is Not a Home

This house is not a home

Written May 8, 2012 9:42am by Amber Gannon Medina

This past week has been strangely frustrating and unsettling, and for once it didn't have to do with the hospital and Mira's progress. It had to do with our home. 

I keep finding myself amazed at how little of the everyday frustrations and tiny calamities it takes before I seem to go into high alert. For some reason I can handle things like my daughter having open heart surgery better than I can handle doing dishes or someone cutting me off in traffic. So when our landlord decided to give us one days notice that he would be having the wood floors in our downstairs flat redone, I didn't realize how much it would bring up for me.

For starters, I had no idea how bad polyurethane fumes are. After spending a day at the hospital (a very nice and easy going one at that!), I picked Pow up and headed home to find that the worst headache inducing smell was permeating our ENTIRE house! Not only had they sanded the floors downstairs, they had applied THREE coats to the entire downstairs....In fact, by just spending 10 minutes in our place, I knew we wouldn't be able to spend the night there. It was not my idea of a fun Friday night to suddenly have to find a place to stay at 7pm.....In fact, I was pretty furious at our landlords...

Being a renter has so many downsides...You feel a lack of control over your space. You end up never making it your own because who wants to invest in some one else's property? There is a certain age where renting just feels like you are turning your wheels and not getting anywhere.

Renting is the only experience of home I have ever had. I remember when I was 7 years old, my parents painted a rainbow on our rental house and were later sued in court by our landlord for "defacing" the property. I also remember starting an accidental toaster fire in another house and being taken to court once again by our landlord for our security deposit. And then there was the dog urine soaked carpet my parents finally ripped up on their own after complaining about it to our landlord numerous times. It was not our dog, and yes you guessed it, we ended up in court.

The idea of "home" has always been complicated for me. Spoiler alert-Parents: This is not anything you should feel guilty about!! As a kid, my family moved on average every 2 years. My dad was the general manager for Red Lobster, and it was their practice to move their managers to new markets every few years. Before the age of 10, I had moved from several cities to the next and had even moved to different houses within a single city several times. I have to admit, at times it was exciting and new to create a new life in a new city or neighborhood. Yet, I never felt I learned how to create roots, and our houses were places to live, never a home.

This lack of experience in creating a home has run into my adult life-I've moved 10 times in the last 14 years and have never felt at home in any of the places I've moved through. I admit it bothered me, but I always felt like I would learn how to make a home...sometime. Yes, sometime soon!

Then several things happened-in what felt like rapid succession-that really made me want to change my relationship with home. First, John and I got married. Suddenly, when I wanted to move not only did I have to bring another person with me, I had to bring all their STUFF. Moving became a lot more difficult and agreeing on a place we both liked was even more challenging. However, it became important because we were a FAMILY now. Second, John found a job with Amtrak and a crewbase in Milwaukee that he (and I) fell in love with. His co-workers became family and stood by us through many difficult times- a deep loyalty for Amtrak and the Milwaukee job in particular took root.

Last, but not least, our Mira came into our lives. Mira finally brought my fear and inability to establish firm roots to a head. It is no longer an option to continue viewing our home and neighborhood as a throwaway container we can move on from. We want Mira to know her neighbors, to feel like she can put posters up in her room because we will be staying awhile and when she gets older, to feel like she can invest in her community. 

Our wood floor debacle really hit home-or should I say it hit "not home"....John said it best by simply saying-we're too old for this (maybe there was an expletive added on to that).....And so once again, we may be on a house hunt (I know, I know we've done this before). However, this time its different- this time it will be with the full hearted intention of making a home with our daughter. One thing I did learn from our numerous moves as a kid is that a home is not just a place-its a feeling in your heart and its your family and community. We are lucky to have most of that covered- now its just on to finding a place for that love and family to grow.