I grew up with a very big and a very loud family in a very small home. I remember hating it and how much anxiety I felt that I never got peace, and I REALLY never got quiet.
It didn’t help that my family had family, and we always took in strays: stray people, stray friends, and stray pets. Taking in strays became something I grew to love and be proud of— I love, and the people I love, love others, and so on.
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The World around me is mine and I am Hers. Creating the illusion of collaborative belonging, even though it felt like the world always seems to have a one up on me.
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Still, I couldn’t wait to grow up. I couldn’t wait to move away and leave. Leave the many, and the loud, and the world I knew it to be at the time. I wanted to have my own space and my own place. Somewhere to call mine, and I would love this place, and call it Home.
Home would have Books, and Pets and Loved ones. I would decorate Home how she deserves, and she would be lived in, and loved. this time it wouldn’t be an illusion of but a conscious combining of everything we have to offer each other.
And My Home, she would be where I found my peace and quiet.
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In the dark, hidden where no one could find it, was home. At least that might have made me feel better about how long it took me to find Her. Home was there waiting with that same inviting warmness I longed for, she welcomed me in and gave me fresh coffee and a snuggly blanket.
My home before, the one that wasn’t home, its still there. With the same loudness, and the same passion, and there is less anger and less fear, and over time there has become less me in that home.
My Home is beautiful. More remarkable and astonishing than one could imagine. She has Books, and Pets, and People – so many people. Home inviting still, now filled with joy. The home I yearned for and the home that I left, maybe they belong the to same belonging.
The “me that I used to be” craved a home that offered serenity and peace, and that “me,” the one that no longer exists, would be shocked to learn that Home, should be loud, with music and joy and laughter, and the quiet is in the knowing looks of the people, My people, for the me that I am now.
and when the me that I am, becomes the me that I will become, there will always be home to found, if you let yourself look. and maybe, just maybe that’s enough.
well anyway, guess I’ll live
unkindly yours,
A. J. Mercer
UnkindlyYours 