As we spend our second New Years Eve in the camper, staring far into the rear-view mirror at our atrociously underestimated completion date, I find myself thinking about the meaning of home.
I never imagined, even in my best estimation that I would be spending more than a year in temporary lodgings. I had hoped never to see my one year trailerversary, but alas is came and went in November without much fanfare.
While striving to build our house, I have discovered that home is where you are comfortable. And while I have learned to cook with the two of three burners that have a knob on the stove. We have 3 blankets on the sofa, because there is a empty space underneath it that makes it cold, the insulation I stuffed in there doesn’t help much. I have grown to accept that a hot shower lasts only 3 and a half minutes. I have become comfortable in the camper, grown accustom to it’s quirks. I hang my coat on the same hook every day when I come in. It feels like home.
But these trailer tribulations are not hardships, just minor inconveniences. They become routine, and you don’t think about them day to day. In a year that had done it’s best to beat mankind into an exhausted submission we still count ourselves among the very lucky ones. We have our loved ones, our health, a future that is promising. Reasons for optimism. No matter how hard 2016 has crapped on us, it has rained a torrential tsunami of shit on others around the world. In a year when so many people have lost so much, how can I even begin to complain about trailer life? Some have lost everything.
I have the love of Kristie and Mikka surrounding me every day, and that is what feels like home. Not where we are, not the building we live in, but each other. 2016 has made me understand what home really means.
And with that lesson firmly under my belt, I will raise a hearty middle finger to 2016 and wish everyone a happier, healthier new year, no matter where you call home.
Here are a few photos around our home, taken on New Years Eve 2016
Be First to Comment