Empty House

When you go on vacation it's quite natural to feel out of your element. The double bed you're sleeping in is not only much smaller than the king size you have at home, but it also doesn't have the familiar body dips that you sink into every night. The bathroom is almost too clean. You don't even dare to put items in drawers because the layout is strange and you know that putting your hairbrush in a drawer most likely means leaving it behind.

The coffee smells good and tastes better because for once you didn't awaken, pad across the linoleum and make it yourself. The furniture is comfy and matches better than yours at home. Waking up at ungodly hours is OK too because you might actually see the sunrise.

Walking around the house, the cabin, or the inn is like visiting a museum. Paintings, pictures and antiques dress up the rooms and make the place feel warm and almost familiar. You always feel welcome. You always feel like you have stepped into open inviting arms.

The next best thing to that vacation, for many, is the return home. Opening the front door and seeing your mismatched sofa and arm chair, seeing your T.V. covered with dust and getting a big wiff of that familiar smell of home is a very settling experience. Dropping your bags you make your rounds around the house, room to room, just checking things out. The bed is there with the body dips, the bathroom shelf is waiting for the toothpaste and the chairs at the kitchen table are as you left them, sort of pushed in. Ah, home at last.

For many unpacking is the first thing to do. I never left types. The laundry is done immediately, coffee is brewing and your back at the computer checking email, reading the news. Home has welcomed you back after having missed you dearly.

Others drop their bags and plop down on the couch. I'll unpack tomorrow types. It's nice to be home, but it's back to the old routine and this thing called work. They often make the scrapbooks so that not a moment of splendid away time is forgotten.

I can probably think of millions of other types of people and coming home, but I can't think of many who go home and feel that it is empty.

I am that type. I look at my walls and they are bare, white. I need more pictures, art, anything to make this apartment feel less airy and more like a warm home I think to myself. Everything is just as I left it and that disappoints me too. I miss having a room full of people, well not people, my mom.

A week just doesn't fill me enough with laughter, fun and chit-chat. I need more time. I think about her at home after the boys and I have just left to head back home and imagine how empty her house feels now too.

It takes me distracting myself with chores to keep from calling my mom the second I get home. How I will miss talking everyday, do miss talking everyday. I'm back home. Back to once a week phone calls. Back to work. Oh, and back to my white walls.