What is Home?

Ask An Angel Oracle- Home -
drawn by Toni Carmine Salerno

 What determines what home is for you?

I've been in a particularly weird place for a while now and I'm trying to get my life back on track. It just so happens that it has not been...for a long time. 

As a young child, I didn't really have a "home". We, apparently, lived across the street from my grandparents at one point but I was too young to recall that. We lived in a small house after my younger sis was born but that was only a year or so and then our parents bought a two story house. We didn't live there long either before mom and dad split. He was supposed to pay for the house so we wouldn't have to move but he had other plans with his new girlfriend and her family. 

We moved in with my grandmother and grandfather. My grandpa built their house in 1947-1948. They rented a house about a half a mile away and he would walk there every day and build more and more. Eventually, he did drive down after work so he could take more supplies. My uncle was born in 1946 and mom in 1948. They moved in just after she was born. I lived with them off and on for years, with my younger sis. Up until I was 18, mom had several husbands so we moved in with them or out at least 8 times. We stayed with my grandmother after age 11 and only 1 step dad was after that time but he moved in with us in my grandma's home (grandpa passed around then and we took care of her).

In that time, we were always told "that's Grady's room", the room of her son who was at that time in his late 40s and had been married and living in Texas for 20 years. My room was "Mamie's room", the nickname they called her mom. She had been dead since the few years preceding my birth. We were only allowed to keep what we could have in the room that was quiet, put away and never left out on the floor. If we had things my gran thought had value, she would hide it away in a drawer in her room so we wouldn't lose it. She grew up during the depression so she saved everything. I didn't hold that against her, it was just strange. I did, however, want to call it my room but was told it was not.

After HS I moved in with a friend and her sister. I was poor and didn't have a bed I could take with me. That was "Mamie's bed" so it stayed in her room. I guess, in case she wanted it from the grave. I slept in an end room on three 2x4's spread out a little so if I rolled in the night I wouldn't fall through the twin bed frame that was left behind by a previous renter. Two of us moved to another trailer that was furnished, however, I had mono and was unable to work so I moved back home. 

One of my older sisters invited me to stay with her not long after that. I got a job and she had a spare room but that was her "storage" so I had to sleep in her bed. She had PTSD from 13 years in the military and an abusive, drug addicted ex husband so she slept with a gun under her pillow and was very antsy some nights. Eventually, she made up a story about her landlord wanting me out, later told me she lied about that and her "real" story was that she had listened into a phone convo between my mom and I where I said I was miserable so she sent me home...you know, for my own good. The call never happened. I was really happy. I had a great job and my first bank account. So within 2 months that was gone and I was back at my gran's house.

A year later I met my future husband and moved in with him, his cousin, cousin's wife and their friend from work. Two months later we moved to an apartment together but it was made clear to me that it wasn't exactly "my place" even though we shared an account, both worked and both paid for it. We moved out of state within another few months and lived with his mom and two sisters. Moved again 2 months later to another house with them but added his brother. Moved back to my grandmother's house after 3 months. 

We got married while we lived there, as primary caregivers for my grandmother, got married and had a son. My sister moved back in as caregiver so we moved out. In the nearly 24 years of marriage, we have moved to 4 apartments, 4 motels (one we lived in for 9 months), two rental houses and one trailer. OH and we lived in the woods for a few weeks. Finally, we bought a home. In all of these moves and purchases, I have never felt like I had a say in where we were going except the last one. My husband liked the idea of being the "breadwinner" as that's what his grandfather did. He admired him completely and wanted to take care of his family. He didn't want his wife to have to work. When we bought the house, that changed. He never asked me to work but would occasionally insinuate I should. I worked now and again but there was always a reason I had to quit. Moving with construction and moving closer to home were the two big ones but I did get laid off more than once. For probably 6 out of the 10 years I felt like it was my home. 

We picked the house together. We signed the papers together. Somehow when our bank sold our the mortgage, my name was no longer on it. When hubs and I argued, he'd say that it made me angry my name wasn't on it because I was after the house and his money. Or, he'd say my name was never on the paperwork because he wanted it set up so that if anything ever happened to him, the debt wouldn't fall on me or the kids. I have copies of the ppw. I signed things with him for hours. It's there. Three out of the four years, I didn't feel like it was my home because we argued quite a bit, I was told (and sometimes it was insinuated), since I didn't have work and pay the mortgage that it wasn't mine, that because things of mine that were in every room it didn't feel like my hub's home either or that because I didn't mow the lawn or work on the garden it wasn't really mine (although I did to both things but if it was done and not the way it 'should have been' done or wasn't seen that I was out there, it didn't happen). The last year, I had been told to leave after a particular argument that went really poorly. 

In the last 9 months, my youngest child and I have lived with my older son and his girlfriend, in a spare room, where they discuss what all they'll do with the room once we are gone and have given us 3 months to find something else. 

I received this card from a reading on Tuesday night when Medium Jenny Lea was unboxing her new Ask An Angel Deck. I need to redefine what Home is for me.  I thought Home is where my husband was. Home was where my kids were. Where my family is...is that Home? But if my Home relies on someone else, is it really a Home or just a house I live in? I lived in a lot of homes with my family, people I love dearly with all of my heart and soul but I've never truly been welcome. There's always felt like there was the option of someone throwing me out and then it happens. Home needs to be ... me. It needs to be the Divine. I am my Home. I am my shelter from the darkness as is Divine Mother/Great Spirit/The Universe/God whatever you call them. Home is where love is, where I am worthy and where I am protected.  I am my Home. I can't throw myself out or let myself down. This is it.

What is home to you?