"Home" ...

Today has been another (sometimes painful) exercise in letting go. This was always going to be a bad week.

The house is sold, contract completed, key's handed over, no longer mine.

I bought the place 18 years ago, and I loved it the minute I walked into it. In that time it has been host to joy, laughter, heartache, broken promises and ultimately neglect.

I haven't been able to face going into it for some years now, my family have used it, my little girl has been there a lot with the grandparents, but I haven't been since I was pregnant with her. Too many ghosts there for me.

It has sat, stuffed full of memories, regrets ... oh and at least 3 families of squirrels in the loft! :-)

Today I moved on. Quite literally.
It's just a place, bricks and mortar, but it hurt like a bitch to let it go.

So, having lived as a bit of a nomad, for probably the last 10 years or so, I've been thinking a lot today about what makes a place home.

Is it the town where you grew up? Is it the house you live in now? Or is it something else? Is there something else that acts as an anchor, a place that's a foundation for the rest of what's going on in your life.

Here, in Brighton, there's a house that we live in, Monkey goes to school here, but I don't know if that makes it home.

I wandered down to the beach late this afternoon to watch the sunset, and looking out, watching the sky flare and fade, that felt like home.

Never make your home in a place,.
Make a home for yourself inside your own head.
You'll find what you need to furnish it -
Memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things.
That way it will go with you wherever you journey.
[Tad Williams]