‘Home is where your heart is’ keeps playing over and over in my head.  I don’t know where my heart is… so I don’t feel at home.  Anywhere.

 

I think of the 4 real homes I have had in my lifetime.  And I have mixed feelings as  3 of them will soon be gone, no longer part of my life.  Sadness yet ever so slightly tinged with relief at the letting go part, but then also sprinkled with fear.  Fear of losing all my anchors.  I am and always have been such a ‘home bird’.

 

My parents home, my childhood family home, is ready for a new family to make lots of memories in;  splash in the pool with wild school parties and family BBQ’s, to gaze out over the beautiful Chiltern Hills beyond the garden hedge and watch and listen to the Kites overhead. The home I always remember coming home to on Exeat weekends and half terms and holidays with great excitement, the home I remember waking up in on my wedding day, the home that has always been there for as long as I can remember.

 

My first house, my first home to own.  Our first home together.  Our fabulous, enviable party house, full of laughter, full of love and romance, girls nights, boys nights and disco party nights.  Always full of light.  And now full of darkness and dirty secrets.

 

My best friend from uni’s home, the most beautiful house, in the most beautiful village in Yorkshire.  The house snug where I first set eyes on the man who was to become the love of my life, as I lay by the fire.  The house that became my second family home, the central point we met while he was in London and I was doing my finals then vice versa, he did his finals and I was in London.   The house that was my home when we moved to Yorkshire to build our life and our future and our home.  The home I learnt the ways of Yorkshire life, learnt to cook on an aga, what a ‘snug’ was, how to always have an open and welcoming door and a fresh pot of tea.

 

And the home I am in now.  Our family home.  The home we built from 3 walls in to a our family haven.  The home we brought our babies home to, where they took their first steps, their first bike rides.  The house we filled with friends for celebrations, christenings, Christmasses and for no reason…   The house that haunts me with memories that pierce my heart.  I feel trapped.  I feel isolated and yet suffocated by the surroundings.

 

So where is home, if I can’t feel my heart?  I feel ‘homeless’ and more than a little bit lost.