Walking into a home is similar to opening a book in progress. Each person in a home is writing their own story. Every step they make, every word they speak, and every night they sleep tells of each person and the mark they are leaving on the world. Each new day is a new chapter and every page tells of a new moment. A home is a space for which history can be written and a story can be told. Without these stories, a house would simply be an empty building, quiet and unbroken, like a blank notebook waiting to be pursued by writing. The walls are its paper and doors are its covers. They create a different story in every house anyone walks into.
My house with the beige interior and red brick exterior might seem a bore to some. But, like they say, don’t judge a book by its cover. Enter and see an all around crazy lifestyle that my family and I are living. In other times in my story one can see the lazy Sundays, along with me lounging in my pink cat pajamas, and my brother playing his video games.
My story, having been always written in the same house, has a different tale each chapter. One day a reader can see me, in my tights and purple leotard ready for dance, practicing in the hallways. Another chapter brings a home-cooked lasagna in the oven, along with its scent tracing every corner of the house. These parts of my story makes me who I am, and without a home for this to happen, it just wouldn’t be the same. Turn the pages back to when I was 3 years old, one can see my parents signing me up for my first ever ballet class at a local dance studio.
Imagine, in another world, universe, or time, that I didn’t live in the house that has been my home for my entire life. It would be on another street, or in another city, state or country, even. I would have different passions based on my environment, and different values and personal qualities based on what I was able to do. Instead of loving going outside to my spacious backyard and jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler under it during the summer time, I might live with a smaller backyard and it would be a treat to take a trip outside. Yet, I am here, in my home, telling my story only for the second time. I am still dancing after becoming interested in it fifteen years ago, I still have my best friend who is actually my next door neighbor, and, most importantly, I still have my history.
A house is merely a building until one enters it, writes their story, and creates their history. Then it becomes a home. Houses are always standing, waiting for a single person, or multiple, to enter it and make it their own, and, to become a home.