Homes Sweet Homes

I have three homes right now.

I just left what we will call Home Number One. That's the home I grew up in, where my family still lives, and where I can show up and still find old pants that fit buried in the dresser. Not a lot has changed inside that home. It's outside the home that things are different. I don't have any friends in Santa Fe anymore, and I don't have a school or a job. So Home Number One is all about my parents and brother. I had a great time with them over Christmas. It was good to be home.

Now I am back in Home Number Two. It's in Richmond. Every once in a while when I'm in Raleigh and I haven't been up here for a few weeks Grandpa will email me and tell me to "come home." I lived here for over a year, and when I come back things are mostly the same, except my room isn't decorated with my art postcards anymore. I usually have all the clothes I need though, because every time I come up here I bring all my laundry to clean. Home is where you want to do your laundry, right? Of course it's also home because my grandparents and Danny live here. Last night Grandma and I watched TV for a while, and then I fell asleep at 7. Home is a place where you can do that- feel comfortable falling asleep at 7 in front of your family.

Lastly, and quite frankly leastly, is Home Number Three, aka my apartment in Raleigh. Sometimes it's less "home" and more "my place." That's where I can make messes and no one will ever know, or where I can stay out as late as I want and no one cares when I get in. It's where I sleep, and do homework, and listen to NPR. But it's not really "home."

One of the nice things about having two real homes where you don't actually live is that you get spoiled when you're there. When I'm in Santa Fe my parents want to make me whatever food I want, or take me out to concerts, or have special movie and game nights (well, that was just New Years Eve). And in Richmond my grandparents always make sure they have skim milk for me (to go with my chocolate milk for breakfast, which they also have for me), and that my bathroom has my clean yellow towels hanging before I get home. I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty nice.