The House That Built Me

My parents often casually throw about the idea that they're going to move away from this place after my brother leaves home (which might be never, making my worries moot! ha). I always protest. Is it selfish that I don't want other people living in what is the closest thing I've got to a childhood home?

All my life, when we visited my grandma in the house my mom grew up in, I would sleep in Mom's old bedroom and play with Mom's old toys and read Mom's old books. I hugged her old worn-out-with-love teddy bear and looked through her yearbooks. My brother and I played her old board games and admired the pictures she'd hung up when she was our ages. As you can tell, my grandma never throws anything away.

I want my kids to have that.

But there are even more selfish reasons. I want a place to come home to that feels like home. My dad's parents are kind of opposite of my mom's and Dad's childhood home(s) are occupied by random people. Grandma and Grandpa built their own house in a totally different town. The house, while familiar, isn't home to Dad. He doesn't have a bedroom there and Grandma got rid of most of his stuff or stuck it away in the attic.

I want to be able to come home, to the place I call home, not just the house where my parents happen to live. Sometimes I think about how weird it will be coming home and sleeping in my bed as a visitor. If my bed still exists at that point...

I know my parent's happiness is what should be my priority, and if moving away is what makes them happy, then I should support it. But how can they not have any attachment to this place?

Maybe I'm growing overly sentimental since my time to move on with my life looms dangerously close or maybe I've heard this song one too many times on the radio, but I really want them to keep this house, my house. I'm afraid if they get rid of it and my room becomes somebody's home office, I'll lose all the memories attached to it. Seven years of my life, arguably the most significant ones yet, unfolded under this roof. The tangible wood and carpet and shingles tether me to something bigger, a whole person I identify with and might lose touch with later. How am I supposed to get her back if her home is gone?

Idiosyncrasy

I enjoy that word.
And the concept it evokes.

Before one of my professors went absolutely nuts today (including choking himself, beating his defenseless gradebook, coffee cup, textbook, and pen on the table, and having a Cajun conversation with himself), he was talking about the concept of just how freakin' weird everybody is. (Ironically...)

Anyhow, that set my mind into a fury of thought. We are all extremely weird. We all have these little quirks and things that would be totally impossible to explain to somebody else and have it make sense. Except that is what I try to do a lot on this blog. Make my idiosyncrasy make sense.

And I supposed they all do make sense, if you trace them back to whenever I started doing/having/exhibiting them. Some of them I'd never be able to trace. But since I'm the only person that's been me for 18 years, I'm the only person with the ability to fully understand myself and my own personal brand of weird.

Besides, what exactly are all these things that make up me, and the personality and traits and characteristics that have come together to create a bundle of person that is Samantha? It's different to everyone.

To the government, I'm my name, my birthday, my social security number. A string of numbers that make up me, the statistics I just bubbled on the census form--Caucasian, biological daughter, dependent.

To my family, I'm a daughter, a sister, of keeper of the cat treats. The bedroom on the right at the top of the stairs. The doer of dishes and the hater of the restaurant you love. I'm a joke whether you feel like one or not and a hug when you get home, whether you want it or not. I'm the spender of too much money and the source of debate. The occupier of the first (and best) couch cushion on tv night.

To my school, I'm rank number seven, Journalism major, newspaper person, rule obeyer, test score achiever. Secretary, keeper of the notification emails, annoyer of the general populous. I'm the same seat every other day, occupier of the couches. I'm a question about grades, an attendance screw-up, the person that knows where the Easter eggs are at any given moment.

To my friends, I'm always up until one, willing to discuss the banal and profound. To some, I'm a religious debate and debacle, to others a mere form of entertainment. Something to bounce ideas off or or somebody to tell your troubles to. I'm last night's homework assignment or a person to show a youtube clip. Words on a screen, a contact in a phone, an address on a street. Maybe I'm just a warm body so you don't feel alone.

To me, what am I? Am I simply a collection of what everyone thinks I am or do I have a personal identity all of my own, selfishly hoarded in my own brain? Am I all the thoughts I don't voice? Am I every book I've ever read, song I've listened to, movie I've seen, tv show I've watched? Am I every piece of information that's passed through my brain, every place my feet have walked?

Am I the words I choose to string together at this very moment? Am I the inexplicable things, the way my legs are shaking for no reason at this very moment? The way I sit when I type, the way I always sleep with my arms under my pillow? My messy desktop or the things pinned to my bulletin board? What I drink, what I eat, the air I breathe?

Or am I simply a page of rhetorical questions sprawled across a page?