Photo A Day: Home

With a topic like “Home,” you are probably expecting a photo related to my house. Perhaps my front door, or the entire front of my house. Perhaps a photo of my living room, or my kitchen. Perhaps even a photo of my kids in the playroom or my husband in the office. But to me, the word “home” is not the same as the word “house.” My house is a specific place; it’s where I live, where I sleep, where I spend most of my time. But home can be anywhere that my family is. So last night, this was home.

In typical home fashion, not everyone was happy at that given moment. Two-thirds of the family is happy (actually, three-quarters; you can’t see the expression on my face, but since you can see that I have a buttered herb roll, calamari, and a cocktail in front of me, it’s a pretty safe assumption), which seems about right for any average moment.

And you know what? It’s okay that not everyone is perfectly happy. Life is not perfect; my family is not perfect. Any family that claims to be perfect all the time is either lying or deluded. To be honest, a family that is always happy would be a little creepy. If there’s always happiness, there’s no dissension; if there’s no dissention, there are no opinions; if there are no opinions, there is no thought. And if there’s no thought, there’s no point.

So I’ll take my imperfect home exactly as it is. Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, we’re in it together: thinking together, forming opinions together, disagreeing together, being happy together. Most of the time, anyway. Because being together is what makes these people my home.

Home.