Homesick

What is Home?

It’s a longing for more of a feeling than a place. When I was younger, “home” was the place I felt secure. A sanctuary where I was surrounded by all my own things comforting to me. I may have been a child of divorce and had a very hard time getting along with my custodial parent (my mom), but I had a good upbringing nontheless. Even after leaving the nest, I was able to feel a sense of sanctuary living with roommates while partying my brains out, and then later while Joe and I were raising a family. The Home we raised our children in for most of their childhood, is the place I last felt “home.”

Our sons were – Joey 8, Jason 5 and Joshua 2 when we entered into homeownership. Our home had all the typical sights and sounds of a young family with little boys. Video games, bouncing balls (Jason, that means you), yelling, squealing, crying, laughing, fighting, bugs in pockets (Joshua 😊), dogs, reptiles, dirt, etc.… And while I may have been temporarily annoyed by some of it, it was sanctuary for all of us. Our home was the hub of regular meals, parties, events and good vibes for not just our family, but many other people. Joe and I loved to entertain and there were always people around to enjoy it.

The Beginning of the End of “Home.”

A few years later, we somehow managed to open the doors of McClellan’s Grill & Brewing Company, which was quite an accomplishment, but it was the beginning of the end of “home” for me. I don’t know if the rest of the family feels as I do, but this is my perspective. At first, it was as if we were carrying our love of entertaining to a larger venue. The dining area was to feel more like an extension of our living room. Neither Joe nor I had any experience managing such an undertaking, but we were nervously excited anyway.

After about a year, the excitement yielded to stress and worry as we realized there would be no way to sustain it with such a large debt service. My mom and her husband at the time had invested a couple hundred grand into the endeavor and we were responsible for making that payment along with another payment to a friend who had invested almost as much. There were others, but I don’t have the time to get into all that. As bills were pouring in, we got to a point where we were having to decide whether we should pay our utilities or our employees. Yes, it was that bad. It’s not like we didn’t have business. Our customers liked our beer and loved our food. It was just that we overbuilt the project and were not able to sustain it. There were many other mistakes as well, but we were newbies. Had we the time to tweak it more and get our shit together, things may have worked out, but time was not on our side. The bank came and shut us down on October 25^th, 2010 and we lost everything. The worst part of it all, our family and friends lost their investments too.

During the nearly 3-1/2 years we were in operation, our family life began to disintegrate. Joey and Jason were teenagers both working at the pub, while Joshua pre-teen ran around town without much supervision. We were consumed with the business and even when I was home, I was so mentally checked out I couldn’t function at the level I should have to be raising a family. As the youngest, Joshua got jipped. He didn’t get the attention he needed and began to get into trouble. When our business went under that was one of a host of reasons I finally felt relief. I could turn attention to family again. Although I wasn’t quite ready to admit that to everyone. No one could possibly understand the anguish and stress that business caused in our lives. I can’t even put it into words.

Life Happens

A week later, we lost our home.

We had lived there about twelve years and accumulated all the stuff you could imagine raising a family of five in a four-bedroom house on an acre of land. It was a ton of work going through everything and deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. This era should’ve marked a positive new phase in our lives had we the mental capacity at the time to do it right, but Joe and I were deeply resentful towards each other and it just got worse. I managed to find a beautiful rental home to move into and we stayed there about a year. It was a nice change, but the recent loss and stress we experienced made it hard to fully enjoy. On top of that, Joe decided to go to Cabo San Lucas to train selling timeshare, while I stayed and tried to deal with my thoughts, my family and the rest of the people in town – on my own, which didn’t help our relationship much from my perspective.

Joe didn’t end up having much success in that capacity, so he came back after a couple of months and we moved to Fort Collins. We felt we needed to get the hell out of that town (that’s how I felt at the time) and begin again on a clean slate. However, it didn’t turn out the way we had hoped. The new rental felt cold. Joey had previously moved out on his own and Joe and I just became more intolerant of each other. He ended up leaving me in the summer of 2012. It was probably better one of us left, because the road we were headed down looked very bleak. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t heartbreaking. Watching him pull out of the driveway for what I thought was the last time, was more than I could take on top of everything else.

Looking back on it all, it’s been my perception that after family falls apart, there is no such thing as “home.” Not for a while. I lost home in 2010, and because the last couple of years in that house were spent in LaLa Land, I figure it’s been well over ten years since I’ve experienced any type of sanctuary. I take that back. I was able to live in a house on my own for a few months in 2015 and I loved it! But I always had the nagging thought in the back of my mind it wouldn’t be for long because the owner was selling it and that’s not home. Since then, I’ve been living out of bags, always in someone else’s house and with someone else’s things (I did get to work with a catering company on the Garth Brooks tour for some of that time though!). All of my belongings – furniture, décor, trinkets, housewares, and most of my clothing – sat in storage for years until I finally moved it into my mom’s garage while I was caregiving.

Presently, I’m living in Joe’s house. Decorated by Joe and with things I can’t really claim as mine, as most of my belongings are now three hours away. Our relationship isn’t perfect, but it’s much better. I don’t really know what to make of it, though we do love each other. Since I’ve begun putting many hours into a project of his, I feel my contribution to the household is covered, but I need more for myself. A bed would be nice. I’ve been sleeping on the couch most of the time because I sleep better there (especially now that I’d have to battle a 100-pound Great Dane for space on the bed!). It’s not that I don’t appreciate what Joe is doing for me. I’m grateful to have basic needs met, like a roof over my head, a place to sleep and food in my belly. But like I said, I need more and it’s not something he or anyone else can do for me. Those are the physical things. More importantly, there is a mental part of it.

The mental part has to do with sanctuary. To me, sanctuary is a feeling, the true essence of home. A place where there are positive vibes and plenty of love, laughter, family and joy around me. It’s also a feeling of security and an encouraging vision of life for the future. I just haven’t been feeling very much of that. And then there is the loneliness. I’m alone about 90% of the time. I work alone, hike alone (most times), draw alone, eat most of my meals alone, and now with a recently reignited passion for writing, I’ll be doing that alone too. Yes, I’m introspective and thrive in my alone time, but it’s also nice to be part of a tribe. I can’t wait around for them to magically come to me. I have to put in the effort to build and/or become of part of something bigger than me – however frustrating it may be to find, stick with and implement. I have many ideas and projects that could really make my life a whole lot better, but never any money to implement them. As we segway into the next paragraph…

My relationship with money is part of what keeps me from feeling sanctuary. If I had more, I’d have the ability to create a better environment for myself and not be at the mercy of others. Jobs are always just temporary to me. When you work in food & beverage, that’s all it ever is. Now I’m a woman over 50 and it’s not easy to find work in that industry. I am invisible to them. It doesn’t help that I’m living in a town full of beautiful young college students who don’t require much to live on while mom and dad pay living expenses. That’s my competition and it’s ok. I’m sick of that industry anyway.

How can I remedy this dilemma?

Home Exists

It’s part of what this whole blog is about. Home exists, I know it and I’ll have it again. It’s my #1 driving force. A comforting environment where I have all of my things around me, sleep in a bed, do my art, plant a big beautiful garden, love on my family and have “a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.” ~ Ava Gardner.