I used to dream of finding Home.
Somewhere between my tweens and my teens, the house my family lived in stopped feeling like a comfortable pocket where I belonged and started feeling more like a roomshare with strangers.
I'd read a lot of books. A lot of stories about outsiders and misfits who fell into grand adventures that led them into perfect little keyhole they were destined to slide into. I thought that someday, in a much less exciting or eventful way, the same would happen to me. If I worked very hard to be good and kind and forgiving then I'd stumble into Home.
It never happened.
I moved from town to city to country, and didn't find it. Every building felt the same, no matter how long I stayed. None of them felt natural, or easy, or safe.
I was living in a dilapidated loft above a busted-out mortuary when I figured it out.
No running water. No heat. No AC. No furniture or mattress or internet, and a dusty bathroom with a broken toilet and a sink inexplicably pre-filled with cigarette butts, and it finally clicked.
I ripped out the old carpet. Swept the floors. Taped the sun out of the windows with foil and foam and big black garbage bags. Cleaned off an old shelf, stole a cot, piled all my blankets on top of it, painted pictures and taped them to the walls and spray-painted a mural and leaned a tarnished old mirror up against the wall.
I found a room divider in an old office room and took a lamp left out with the trash and set up an empty coffee pot with cheap silk flowers. Hung a shower curtain in the morgue and turned a storage bin into a bath and hooked my towel on a loose nail stuck into the wall.
And when I left, and left everything behind, I found another little empty hole in the world and did it all over again.
That's something I don't think I could have learned from all my stories. It's not something very interesting to read about, some lonely stranger puttering about by themselves in a hot, dark room. But it's important to share it, I think, so I've done my best.
I think that a Place is a beast, and to make it a Home, you have to dig in your claws and fight for it, tooth and nail.
Then, once you've tired it out, string up lights below it's ribcage and pet it nice between the ears until it purrs.
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2010s Nostalgia || Hetalia Edition
Hetalia Youtube Nostalgia Playlist | 117 songs | 7hr 5min
• Hey Na Na - Katie Herzig
• Viva La Vida - Coldplay
• Rasputin - Boney M.
• Glad You Came - The Wanted
• Hot Mess - Cobra Starship
• Counting Stars - OneRepublic
• Fireflies - Owl City
• Bombshell Blonde - The Jagged Edges
• Do Better - Say Anything
• Welcome To The Show - Britt Nicole
• Dance With The Devil - Breaking Benjamin
• Survive - Sick Puppies
• Life is Beautiful - Sixx:A.M.
• Fairytale - Alexander Rybak
• Everybody Loves Me - One Republic
• Don't Mess With Me - temposhark
• Mimimi - SEREBRO
• I Like It Loud - Cash Cash
• I Just Wanna Run - The Downtown Fiction
• I'm ALIVE! - Becca
• Lovestruck - Breathe Electric
• I Like To Dance - Hot Chelle Rae
• Haven't Had Enough - Marianas Trench
• Kiss Me Thru The Phone - Soulja Boy, Sammie
• Hard out Here - Lily Allen
• Runaway Baby - Bruno Mars
• I Don't Care - Fall Out Boy
• Airplanes - B.o.B., Hayley Williams
• Rock Star - Prima J
• This Is War - Thirty Seconds To Mars
• Hey Brother - Avicii
• Cinderella - Tata Young
• Centuries - Fall Out Boy
• Déjà Vu - 3OH!3
• Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy Me - Lene Alexandra
• Miss Jackson - Panic! At The Disco, LOLO
• The Ballad of Mona Lisa - Panic! At The Disco
• Europe's Skies - Alexander Rybak
• Bad Apple!! - RichaadEB, Cristina Vee
• Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off - Panic! At The Disco
• Let's Kill Tonight - Panic! At The Disco
• Hurricane - Panic! At The Disco
• Casual Affair - Panic! At The Disco
• Never Close Our Eyes - Adam Lambert
• Playing With Fire - Ovi, Paula Seling
• Angel With A Shotgun - The Cab
• Nicotine - Panic! At The Disco
• Killer - The Ready Set
• How to Be a Heartbreaker - MARINA
• This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race - Fall Out Boy
• Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) - My Chemical Romance
• Troublemaker - Olly Murs, Flo Rida
• Good Girls Go Bad - Cobra Starship, Leighton Meester
• I Can't Decide - Scissor Sisters
• One Woman Army - Porcelain Black
• How To Start A War - Simon Curtis
• Maps - Maroon 5
• Do Better - Say Anything
• STARSTRUKK - 3OH!3
• Remember Everything - Five Finger Death Punch
• The Diary of Jane - Breaking Benjamin
• Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
• When You're Evil - Aurelio Voltaire
• Canadian, Please - Julia Bentley, Gunnarolla
• Sarah Smiles - Panic! At The Disco
• Take Me to Church - Hozier
• Viking Death March - Billy Talent
• Headstrong - Trapt
• Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind
• Don't Believe A Word - Third Eye Blind
• Warriors - Imagine Dragons
• iNSaNiTY - CircusP
• Paralyzer - Finger Eleven
• I'm Awesome - Spose
• 24 - Jem
• Clarity - Zedd, Foxes
• Hall of Fame - The Script, will.i.am
• The Is Gospel - Panic! At The Disco
• Immortals - Fall Out Boy
• Rather Be - Clean Bandit, Jess Glynne
• Wake Me Up - Avicii
• a thousand years - Christina Perri
• Just Like Fire - P!nk
• Safe & Sound - Taylor Swift, The Civil Wars
• Safe And Sound - Capital Cities
• Everybody Wants To Rule The World - Lorde
• Demons - Imagine Dragons
• DNA - Little Mix
• Remember The Name - Fort Minor, Styles of Beyond
• Victorious - Panic! At The Disco
• 右肩の蝶 (Butterfly On Your Right Shoulder) - Kagamine Rin/Len
• We Are One (Ole Ole) - Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez, Claudia Leitte
• Hero - Skillet
• Maraca - Mohombi
• The Phoenix - Fall Out Boy
• DONTTRUSTME - 3OH!3
• Teenage Dream - Katy Perry
• SING - My Chemical Romance
• Good Time - Owl City, Carly Rae Jepsen
• White Rabbit - Egypt Central
• Not Gonna Die - Skillet
• The Kill - Thirty Seconds To Mars
• We No Speak Americano - Yolanda Be Cool, DCup
• Nobody's Listening - Linkin Park
• Disco Pogo - Die Atzen
• German Sparkle Party - The Something Experience
• Dirty Little Secret - The All-American Rejects
• I Could Be The One - Avicii, Nicky Romero
• Can't Hold Us - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
• Still Into You - Paramore
• Primadonna - MARINA
• Pompeii - Bastille
• 恋愛サーキュレーション (Renai Circulation) - 物語シリーズ
• Awake And Alive - Skillet
• Monster - Skillet
• Poker Face - Lady Gaga
• Falling Inside The Black - Skillet
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