Write about ten images that come to mind: “My home makes me think of:”
My home makes me think of my husband, who is pissing me off. I find his video gaming so frustrating! He has headphones on, and is listening to some dumbass podcast, talking back to the hosts when he disagrees with something they say. I guess he really doesn’t play video games that much, especially compared to how much he used to play, but even a little bit triggers my feelings of loneliness and isolation from when he used to play more, and when I basically had no friends for one reason or another.
My home makes me think of my hometown, Monroe, where people like to think that they live in a small town when it’s really not. So, we get all the bad parts about living in a small town but none of the good parts. I felt screwed most of the time because my family had moved there when I was eight, so no one had gone to high school with my dad, no one knew my last name. I know that there were at least a few occurrences where I lost out on job offers and scholarships because of this. It was a very insular community, and I lived forever on the outside.
My home makes me think of my cats, who are dumb and fuzzy, and who I love very much. I’m sure they’re sleeping right now. I read somewhere that cats’ body temperature is a few degrees above ours, so they’re snuggly, and they take very good care of their fur and keep themselves clean, so in a way they evolved to be good pets.
My home makes me think of buying a house, and how stressed out I am just considering that.
My home makes me think of when I was really little, I would get up soooo early on Saturday mornings that the TV would still be playing static, and every day, to start its first broadcast (usually Underdog), the channel would play some men’s chorus singing the Star-Spangled Banner, except that at the end, they’d add in this bit where the choir sings, “America, my HOME!!”
My home makes me think of my husband, who shows me he loves me in a million ways every day. Right now, for example, he’s making me dinner. And doing my laundry. And every night, if I ask him, he gets up off the couch and gets me something to drink, even though I’m sitting right next to him and could just as easily get my own self something to drink.
My home makes me think of my grandma, and getting butterflies in my stomach every time we visited her because I was so excited. It makes me remember the little area inside her door where we would stamp the snow off of our boots at Christmastime. It reminds me of the smooth parquet floor that I used to slide around on in my socks.
My home makes me think of our old house in Monroe. I looked it up on Zillow a few months ago, and it was apparently built in 1878. Like, that explains a lot. It was a strange house on a lot of levels. Unfinished basement (finished basements were pretty much de reguer), only one bathroom, and the bathroom itself was weird. There was this wood table pushed up between the window (weird in and of itself) and the back of the shower, where we kept our soap and shampoo and stuff (at least there was plenty of room for a family with three girls?), and I don’t like to think about how much rot was probably in that old wood. Haha. There wasn’t carpet in the upstairs, only linoleum (and boy was that unpleasant on cold winter evenings!) and my room didn’t have a heating vent, only a cold air return, and I wasn’t about to sleep with the door open, so I slept with a hat on most of the winter. And gloves. And, like, three pairs of socks.
My home makes me think of my dorm in college, which was this cool old luxury hotel built in 1926, and mostly falling to pieces. Mom thought it was a fire trap. She was probably right.
My home makes me think of Wisconsin. This isn’t feeling any more like the state I grew up in. It’s much more polarized. I guess I was insulated growing up from more hateful people. I never understood people who would pick on teachers. TEACHERS, for God’s sake! They don’t get paid enough to get treated poorly, but I know that other people get paid worse. And that maybe is enough to resent people.
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