Home is Where the Heart is

Towards the end of my pregnancy and during maternity leave, I have been reflecting upon the past chapters of my life and pondering of what my life novel will consist. Hence the decision to scribble such random thoughts down in the form of a blog. Oh they will be random and they will be many...

As I was cleaning up after a wonderful Veal Parmesan dinner, that I made, thank you very much, the past came back to me, almost like a haunting. As I sat at the table with my brother, sister, sister-in-law, niece, nephew, husband and daughter in my lap, I began to think about a conversation that we were having before dinner. My brother was remembering a dish that my mother used to make called sukiyaki. (Thank you spell check, I had attempted with a phonetically challenged modification of "suekeyahkey.") I pictured all of us at the table in Pittsfield, Mass.; mom, dad, brother and sister dumping soy sauce on our dinner. More than likely, it was probably a late dinner, after work, games and practices, we all sat at the table, dad asking each one of us how our day was and what was going on at school. Sukiyaki was a welcomed break from some meat and boiled potato ensemble. "Mom, can we have mashed potatoes tonight?" "Oh honey, you can mash them at your plate." "Ahh mom!"

Tonight, was a rare occurrence at our house, well apartment, as we are limited in space and seating capacity, but it was comforting, it was like I was at home, but only for a second. Since my sister has moved down here to my brother's house, we have been gathering together for Sunday dinner over there. Which of course is a blessing that we are all together down here, 3 siblings, one fresh out of college, working for a non-profit in DC, one married with 2 kids and building a second home on Lake Louisa, and of course me a newlywed with a 4 month baby girl. But this arrangement, sadly, will soon be coming to an end, for my sister is moving back up to Boston at the end of the summer and my husband and I are leaving in October/November, whenever we get our orders.

I left Massachusetts 4 years ago in January. How I wanted to leave that freezing hell. Getting up at 5 am, scraping the frozen windshield of my Monte Carlo, speeding to work with no heat, I told myself that it was going to be the last winter. However, one more went by and I packed up my new-to-me silver Jetta and got out of town, cruising on the Turnpike, down on 91, to the NJ Turnpike and then the Beltway. I decided that I would live here for about 2 years or so, apply to the FBI and become a profiler and travel all over the place. I did apply to the FBI, but opted not to retest, I did do some traveling... I moved twice with my brother and his family, I lived with them for 2 years, then I moved into a townhouse with 2 great girls and a strange Lehigh frat boy, and then 2 times after that with my soon to be husband. I am getting to my point right now... I haven't felt at home, like home in Massachusetts home, until tonight for a second, when everyone was gathered at our table, in our apartment.

I feel like I am always waiting for the next move. For example, currently, my socks and underwear are stored in bins. It is really a space issue, if we had more than a one bedroom, I would be able to spread out my possessions. For all intents and purposes, I have never really "unpacked" since I left for college. Then I packed my things in clothes baskets, now I pack my belongings in plastic bins. My sister just invested in some and joked, "Remember Erin's bins?" It's true though, I haven't unpacked. I've just bought more each time I move. And now that I have married a marine, we will be moving a guaranteed 4 more times until his retirement. So that means more bins, bins for him, bins for me, bins for the baby, bins for our other future babies!

So as we all huddled and sat around our small kitchen table eating from pasta filled plates and devouring an entire Carvel ice cream cake, celebrating my husband's birhtday, I decided not to worry about the future or the past, live for the moment and eat up another piece of that cake, because home is where the heart is and the ice cream was melting.