Home

[enismirdal]

So I was talking to my flatmates the other day, and at some point I mentioned being away one weekend. "Oh yes," one of them replied. "You're going home that weekend."

"No," I said. "This is home. I'm just going to my parents' house."

"That is home!" she insisted. It seems both of them regarded their parents' houses as "home" and our current residence as something else... Whereas as far as I am concerned, this house is my home. My hamsters are here, my books are here, my blankets are here. It's where I drop my guard, where I can set the rules, where I can put up nude Elf posters and decide what level of chore-doing represents the best balance between minumum effort and keeping everyone happy.

They reckon they won't stop counting their parents' houses as home until they actually buy a place of their own. I'm keenly aware that on an academic salary that's probably going to take me till I'm 35 at least, and who knows where me and my parents will be by then? I certainly will have spent longer living away from their current house than I spent living in it. And if they move...well, what possible emotional connection could I have to a house I've never really lived in or had any say over? As it is, my old bedroom is now an office and when I visit I sleep in the guest room. Quite honestly, if you used the measure of "time spent there in last 2 years", tuxedo_elf's house is more home than my parents' house these days.

So my question to my Flist is: When did you stop viewing your parents' house as "home"? or, if not applicable, When do you think you will stop viewing your parents' house as "home"?

Comments

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it ever was...

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

Once I moved out.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I haven't actually stayed with my parents for ages, but I think of both here and there as "home", "going home" can refer to both directions. I don't know if/when I'll stop depending on where I live; I think I'd probably stop thinking of their house like that if they moved to a new house I'd never lived in.

[ilanin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do this. To the point where my parents often stop and ask me what I mean when I say "going home".

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Yes, this waa about right for me. My parents moved this year, and the new place definitely _isn't_ home, as I've never lived there (not that I don't feel very welcome!)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Come to think of it, on the other hand, to some extent people and places are also home: I feel like I'm coming home when I go to Worcester, Cambridge, or wherever my parents live, less so than if I'm going to a specific house, but I still might say "going home".

[snowpiratess.livejournal.com]

Interesting question. I think of my parents place and my current abode as home, but then I don't see home as a singular concept. I haven't stayed at my parents current house for more than a month at a time (I certainly didn't grow up there), and the place where I currently live is an impersonal short-term rent, but they're both homes.

This tendency might be because my family have something of a nomadic streak. We'd moved more than ten times before I turned ten, and I've continued the tradition by living in five different places since graduation. (And in two weeks it'll be six!)

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I haven't quite managed ten moves in ten years, but I lived in 6 different houses with my parents and then went to university, so I'm reasonably accustomed to uprooting. I suspect this makes it easier for me to get comfortable wherever I am and accept that this is where I'll be staying for the foreseeable future, so I might as well get used to it!

[snowpiratess.livejournal.com]

That's the attitude I take too, and it's been useful so far. :)

[amabat.livejournal.com]

They're both home. They're just places I belong and can relax in. Strangely, places where I feel at home. I mean, in either case I have a certain right to be there, and there'll always be a place there for me.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I don't really think of my parents' place as home but I do occasionally use that word for it nonetheless.

[phyncke.livejournal.com]

I suppose when I was 17 and moved out to college or no...when I got my own apartment when I was 19 and set up my own place. Own furniture and stuff like that. Many vacations I would visit home briefly and then spend lots of time relaxing at college with my friends.

So...home is where I am or was anyway. We sold our family home when I was in secondary school so that was a big break in that for me. None of the places I lived felt like home after that until I got my own place.

*noddle*

[naurring.livejournal.com]

Well, I still live with my mom, so of course it's home. On the other hand, the place where I lived in France is also home and actually more than this one and whenever I use the word 'home' I find myself refering to France most of the time.

[emperor]

I think once I stopped living in college on a termly basis and started living in housing that I rented for the year or longer, the place I was renting became home.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

That definitely makes sense to me, and I think to some extent it applies to me too - that was the point where I could really start moving rubbish from my parents' house into the one where I was staying, because I didn't have to vacate the room at the end of term!

[larianelensar.livejournal.com]

In college. One of my friends and I decided that where we were at was 'home' and the parent's house was 'Home' with a capital H.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

LOL I love it!

[melalicia62.livejournal.com]

For me, they were both were home.

Actually, my home now was my parents' home - they died 3 years ago. So, it has always been home!

Mel

[jaiden-s.livejournal.com]

My parents' house was home until I got my first real job and rented my first real apartment. I think I was 25.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

*nods* I think it's semi-similar with me. OK, so a PhD isn't a "real job" per se, but it's close enough, and yes, it's rented, but it's mine, and the tenancy agreement is an adult one where I'm respected as opposed to a silly student one where I'm still treated to a large extent like a child, so I feel almost grown-up. LOL

[tuxedo-elf.livejournal.com]

Once I moved out my new house became home... though it took me a long time to be comfortable with saying things like 'I'm going to my parents' this weekend.' Even now, my one concession is on my phone... Mum and Dad are still listed under 'home'.

As an aside, part of the reason Kent was so awful is that it never felt like home... nowhere did, which was un-fun.

Slightly odd really, to think you've spent more time at mine (I'd say 'here' but I'm currently at my inlaws!) in the past two years than with your parents! You're always welcome though, you know that. :)

ETA: Rented doesn't mean a place can't be home - Feltham became home so quickly it was scary! *hits post and goes to bed as it's stupidly late*

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

What's your actual home phone number listed under, then? As "Home" on my phone is the number for this house...

I can imagine not having a sense of home would be disruptive and altogether not very nice. Nowhere to really relax and let down all your guards! Hooray that Feltham has become home...you seem "at home" there, actually. You deserved to find yourself somewhere nice after all the mess in Kent.

And LOL I guess you're just closer, and cheaper to get to!

[tuxedo-elf.livejournal.com]

'Home 2' LOL. Imaginative, that's me! :P

I am... even once we move we want to stay on the development.

Visiting soon then, I hope! :D

[deborah_c]

I'm not entirely sure when it happened for me. I went off to boarding school when I was 8, but I think my parents' house still remained "home", probably even through my year off (when I was living 100+ miles away). I think while I was at university, Cambridge gradually became home - I worked here during the summers - but my parents' house was still the only permanent base I had, even if the connection became more tenuous.

After university, I rented for a year, and that was definitely more "somewhere I live", not "home". It probably didn't help that of was a bit of a war zone, as my two housemates Didn't Get On (I.e. Threw things at each other). After a little over a year,Liz and I moved in with each other (and bought a house) and that very definitely *was* home. We felt All Grown Up, and it was a shock how much more we needed to grow up overnight when the children arrived a few years later.

I know my parents' perspective was different: I'm pretty sure they didn't really accept that "home" wasn't at their house (particularly at times like Christmas) for several years after I'd moved on, probably until we had children.

It's two years now, or just over, since Liz and I split up and I moved out. Quite recently I realized that some time in the last few weeks, this house has now become home, and stopped just being where I live. It's rather comforting, somehow -- maybe I'm ready to start moving on to new things in my life.

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

Home has always meant 'the place I live', so when I got my first flat, that was home, and where my parents lived was then my folks' home... don't remember ever talking about going 'home' for the weekend or anything. I have things that are precious to me, and where they are is where I live, I think?

[nienna-weeper.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmmm... I don't really remember! I think I was 30 something though... It might have been earlier had I been married.

Interesting thing to thing about...

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I moved out when I went to university at the age of 18. That ws when home started meaning Cambridge. My mother (60), otoh, still refers to her parents house (where she grew up) as 'home'.

The thing I found really weird was when Benedict started school and other parents would ask me whether I was going 'home' for Christmas.

[enismirdal.livejournal.com]

The thing I found really weird was when Benedict started school and other parents would ask me whether I was going 'home' for Christmas.

Ooh, yes, that would be weird! I'd expect that having kids would change how you regard "home" quite a bit, since where you're living is their home, and it becomes somewhere with strong emotional ties.

[divulge.livejournal.com]

When I was 21 - my parents sold the house I'd grown up in and went their separate ways. I didn't really consider anywhere 'home' for a while but my current flat definitely is, and the fact that it's rented, not bought, doesn't change that :)

[melime.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't properly say because I live with my parents. Buuuut when I was in college, this was still "home," but my apartment at school was "home" too. They were like too different kinds of home... like, my personal home, and home as in where I grew up.

And now they're both the same thing again... ugh. >.>