This blog is all about me, living in the ME. But there is more to me than the place where I live. There is more to me than the ME.
Like most expats, I have a house, and then I have a place I call home. Some days I think "and never the twain shall meet". But realistically, truly, fantastically, home is where the heart is. So no matter where I am, if I have my soldier and my miracle by my side, I am home.
Back in Canada, we own a cottage, a summer home, an idyllic spot where I fell in love with my soldier and brought my daughter into this world. It was never a house ... It was far too small to be considered that. But in my heart it was my home. Simply because it held all that was most cherished of my memories.
It sits nested in woods, overlooking a lake. The first week I spent there with my soldier, we watched every sunset, every sunrise. I've sunbathed in all my glory on the dock over the lake, danced carelessly for my soldier as the moonlight wrapped itself around the forest. I've seen the lake surrounded by fiery autumn leaves, snow-covered winter trees, spring blossoms and summer crops. That cottage is where I typed the last word on my Master's thesis, and where, the very next morning I said "Baby, this is it, you'd better get me to the hospital, we're gonna have a baby!"
We planted a red maple there, right by the deck, for the next baby, the one we lost. We planted a memory there, for ...... ever.
For years, since we've come to the ME, I've called that place home. But slowly, gradually, I've come to realize it's not. I've realized that wherever I find myself, with the soldier and kiddo, THAT'S home.
Both my hubby and I come with a past. When we moved in together, we had to rid ourselves of much of the material associated with that past. When we moved to the ME, we had to rid ourselves of most all of it. We came here with the bare essentials, determined to make a fresh start. And we have. We emptied out the closets, the cupboards, we dusted everything off.
So we find ourselves with new 'stuff', new memories, a new 'home'.
Not by choice, by chance. We find ourselves enjoying the new artwork we've put up on the walls, the new plants we see blooming in the garden. We find ourselves snuggling on the couch under a blanket, watching the last episode of Survivor.
We find ourselves happy to step into the haven we call home at the end of a long weekday, a long weekend. We find ourselves inadvertently wanting to get back 'home'.
And when we make it back, when we get home, we're no longer in the ME. We're just home. My soldier, my miracle, and me. Home. In the ME.
Doesn't matter where we are, ME, no ME, it' still me, home, in the ME or wherever ....
