Home Is Where The Heart Is

So, Where Do You Keep Your Heart?

Family. People generally immediately leap to an image of a mother, father, a few siblings - the typical nuclear family. Maybe, with a stretch, people might see a single parent family, or a family where grandparents are the guardians, or an adoptive family. Either way, we've still got a basic structure: a child, with legal guardians of some kind.

Following that definition, my family is fairly usual. Mother, father, little brother, older half-sister, older half-brother. Nothing too exciting there. We all live in a house. Technically, i usually refer to it as my home. So, we know who my family is and that i have a house. But really, i ask myself what makes my house a home.

Home in my books is somewhere where i'm totally comfortable, or at least moreso than anywhere else. Where there are people that care about me, who i can talk to if i need to. People who can make me laugh and smile, or who make me cry (in a good way, in a human way). A place where i can be myself and not feel bad about who i am. That's what i consider a home.

I keep my heart somewhere other than at my house. Therefore, i wouldn't really consider my house to be my home. And if we consider family to be where our home is, then by extension i've got another family in the place where i keep my heart.

Where do i keep my heart? These days, i'd say that the majority of it resides at church. More in the people there than anything else. They're my family. They'd stick by me no matter what, they look after me when my actual family drives me insane. RevJ is like a dad (sorry, but you are - and you're almost old enough to be :P), DrB is like some kind of wacky uncle, the one who is always doing silly things. Like tonight, where English told him to order a Whopper from Maccas - and he did, much to the amusement of Peter the manager. I've got the annoying little brother types (Little M, StrongMan), the nephew types that i adore (my darling little Bobby), older parent/grandparent types (StrongMan's mum, English's parents), cousins that i look after (Vi, SD, English, ShirtlessBuddy)... Then there are the older brother types who look after me (South African, the South Africans brother) and the crazy family friend types (MarriedMan, Elmo). Not to mention Loz, who's somewhat like a sister. So these guys are my family.

They make me comfortable, they make me laugh and cry, they make me miserable, angry, happy - often all at once. Just the way a real family should. But there are a whole bunch of them that would gladly help me out, whenever i needed it. Proof that they care? The SouthAfrican, MusicMan, RevJ and DrB are the people that can generally tell when i'm upset, moreso than almost anyone else does. So kudos to them. English is the person who's made me laugh the most in the last few months. Elmo was the instigator of the infamous tickle-fight, which was the hugest fun. English was also the idiot who informed the few newcomers to church of my 'secret'; damn it, i was truly hoping that could fade into the past. Apparently not. It's going to stick around to haunt me!

So, that place is my home. For better or worse, it seems to be where my heart is stuck. So i'll be sticking around there for at least a little longer.

Annie