Living at Home?

The other day, another blogger made a comment on her blog about "living at home". I knew what she meant -- "living with your parents" -- but I decided to play the devil's advocate and feign ignorance. I made a bit of a snarky comment saying that everyone lived at home and I'd not seen people living at the library or the bus station. I wrote this to see what she or another reader might say in response.

The reason for that was that I've never said, "living at home" in reference to living with parents. When I turned eighteen, I was eager to move out to go to college and start my adult life. I'd go visit my father on major holiday breaks from school, such as Christmas and Easter, but I'd stay in my off-campus apartment over the summers.

I never referred to these visits as going home for Christmas, but rather "going to my Dad's for Christmas". Well, I have to admit that one big reason for that was that my father had moved to a different state during my freshman year of college and I'd never lived in his new house, so it wasn't "home" for me.

A few years later, after my brief misadventure of a marriage, I moved in with my father until I got back onto my feet, mainly for my son's sake. I never once referred to this move as "moving back home", for the same reason mentioned above, but more importantly for the fact that I was an adult now and "home" was no longer synonymous with where my father made his home, but wherever I chose to make it. Amazingly enough, I've even heard people who are the age I am now refer to moving in with a parent after a divorce as "moving back home"!

Nowadays, if I considered "home" as being where my parents are, I'd have to go pitch a tent at the cemetery.