I've always been fascinated with the concept of having a home of my own. What even is a home, really? It's not a building. It's not the things inside the building. Home is people, and home only exists in one's memory, they say. But is it? And does it?
In the twelfth grade, my math tutor used to say that infinity wasn't simply a very large number, or the largest number — it's a process. You can approach infinity, but you can never get there. I think home, too, is a process. You build and you build and you can only hope that you get to stay there for any quantum of time.
My earliest home I was given. It was… adequate. But you never quite got the sensation of being warm or comfortable in there. Later when I visited the homes of others, I realised that there were supposed to be four walls, not three, and water wasn't supposed to drip from the ceilings.
The first time I tried to build a home for myself, I ended up letting it fall into disrepair. I didn't know yet that homes need maintenance and work to keep them livable.
The next was a lovely place, a cottage in the woods with a pond nearby, a little life I was going to have. I spent a lot of time building it up, and I thought I was going to live there forever. But then I was evicted and someone else got to live in it instead.
The third I tried to be careful about, but the paint fumes and the excitement of having a home again made me rush through the process. A weak foundation meant it collapsed after a month of staying in it.
My fourth home was hard to be hopeful about. I applied for the permits and got rejected. I built it anyway. It was bulldozed.
Home is a kit that ships with some assembly required. You have to put it together before you can live in it.
And home is a process. You can approach it; you can never quite get there.
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