Sleeping Around

Wait! It’s not what you think! I haven’t decided to suddenly turn this mama blog into Fifty One Shades of Gray.

So... last night, at two in the morning, poor C stormed out of our bedroom.

You see, Emmy had kicked him (in her sleep) for like the 84^th time. He couldn’t take any more beatings.

I felt horrible for him, of course. It’s no fun to be kicked in the stomach and back repeatedly, when all you want to do is rest and maybe dream a little.

After he left the room to go seek refuge in our tiny guest room, I started thinking about beds (it was two a.m. and my head was sleepy, so I wasn’t going to start thinking about nuclear physics).

I started thinking about all the beds I’ve slept in (again, not in THAT way). Then I started counting the number of places I’ve called home since I was born. 

There were some real winners among the bunch. Like the studio basement apartment I lived in when I got my first job after graduating from college. The place was the size of my thumbnail, reeked of auto exhaust fumes (the one tiny window in the apartment was in direct line with the complex’s driveway), and was directly across the hall from the laundry room, which meant that the “thunka thunka” of the dryer was the theme song of my existence.

There was the apartment out in LA that I shared with a spider enthusiast who enjoyed scaring me with his black widows and tarantulas. He also loved playing with fire (literally). And also dressed in women’s lingerie constantly  when he was stupid drunk. I never slept very peacefully in that apartment.

And there was the haunted house in Providence, Rhode Island. I’m not a believer in ghosts, or a watcher of Crossing Over with John Edwards, but I can say with reluctant certainty that the home had “visitors”. Want an example? One night I was sitting upstairs in my bedroom, when all of a sudden I smelled smoke. I ran downstairs to the kitchen and discovered all of the gas oven burners on FULL BLAST.  I was THE ONLY person in the house, mind you. Also, my bedroom looked like it was straight out of a David Lynch movie. It was totally spooky.

Anyways, when I was all done recalling my former abodes, I realized I have called at least 18 different places “home”.

That SEEMED like a lot to me. I mean, for someone whose parent wasn’t in military service, anyway.

But IS it a lot? Or, nowadays, with our nomadic, on-the-move culture, is that considered an average number of homes? 

I looked it up this afternoon, and it seems that according to three year old data from the U.S. Census Bureau , the average American moves 11.7 times in their lifetime.

So, yay, I’m above average. I’ve slept around more than the average American bear.

I know it’s going to sound sappy, but I kind of hope that this is it. That THIS house will be THE house, for me and for my family, for many many years to come. Because even though it is a small house, I love the walls we are decorating with Emmy’s artwork, and the basement that is being filled with boxes of past holiday memories.  I love sleeping in THIS bed, in THIS bedroom, with my son who sounds like a pterodactyl , my David Beckham-like daughter, and my poor sleep-deprived husband. This is my home. I love calling this home.