Returning home

Eleven out of twelve months of the year my children and I enjoy the comforts of what is affectionately known as "the cottage." With its endless windows, enticing window seat, minimal electricity, charming kitchenette sans running water and a determined little wood stove, it's almost easy to forget it once served as a rickety old garage. Most winters pass with the dear wood stove performing it's best to keep us warm, but with recent temperatures dropping far below the average for Missouri, the kids and I have taken up temporary residence within my parents darling century old farmhouse. While my sister is away pursuing the advantages of a college education we have taken over, a bit regrettably, her room. This room has seen several loving tenants, first of which was me ten years ago when we first laid down roots on our eight acres. Moving back into my old room is a bit surreal as it no longer bears any memory of my long erased residence. But at the same time I find myself remembering late nights spent hunched over my algebra homework, photo shoots with my friends and my closet full of odd hats, jamming to music that echoed through every thin wall in the house and most of all the last two months of my senior year in high school. The cottage has become the setting for a whole new set of memories that could fill a book, but my room, regardless of its new modern decor, is home. Rather than the source of childhood memories it is comfort and solitude. Where I spent hours mooning over crushes, chatting with friends, and where I returned to when I found I wasn't as prepared for college as I had originally anticipated. I've been home with my kids for over three and a half years now and until I moved into my room, although temporary, there was a piece of home missing. I left so abruptly that there was a chapter that wasn't finished, as sentimental and funny as that may sound. Now my apartment is about to be finished and I have a whole new fresh start waiting for me with my kids on my own. While yes I'm simply over the garage and my folks are a mere staircase and hallway away, the luxury of having everything I need within one space offers, finally, a new sense of independence and responsibility. The cottage will regain its rightful position as playroom and the wood stove can return to temporary status during the winter for small parties, and snowy afternoon escapes. Each return visit within its chilly or green house like state, depending on the season, will send vivid pictures of late nights awake wondering at the scrapings over my head, game nights with friends and french bread pizza's, St Patty's day birthday parties and cool nights hovered by the fire drinking hot cocoa. Or even more appealing running into the house in the dead of night with a child clinging to my arms under below freezing temperatures praying that we can make it to the bathroom before a tiny bladder decides to give out; carrying trays laden with food and drinks freshly cooked and attempting, rather unsuccessfully not to trip over the many uprooted bricks that line the walkway from the house to the cottage door. My return home wasn't the easiest decision I've ever made, my pride and independent nature had a few things to say on the matter but I'll never regret the decision. And I can't wait to listen to the memories my kids relay to me when they have a chance to visit their childhood home.