my birth, my parents got a phone call. It started with “I have some good news, and some bad news.” The realtor had called to tell them, that the house was theirs; sadly my parents also had to deal with a car that had smashed into the front porch during the previous night’s liquor store robbery. However, it was soon taken care of, and my parents had their first house. It was a nice sturdy brick house, with three bedrooms. My parents shared a first floor bedroom, with me in one down the hall, and my brother down in the basement. It was his own choice; he enjoyed the company of the bugs.

Over the years my home had morphed like a snake shedding its old skin, and bringing in a slick new version of itself. It has always had the same familiar floor plan though, the one that welcomed me to sit down at the weak kitchen table for waffles on Sunday mornings, dance in the living room when my parents weren’t around, and it still held the basement room full of spider webs. Though the house seems to get cramped as I grow and even though the floors are thin as tissue paper, I still would never get rid of it. It is a part of me, so much so that I rarely think about how close I am to it, it is simply here.

I’m sure that when you pass my home, you would see nothing any different about it then the other brick bungalows surrounding it, but I can point out all the places we’ve put in different bricks, and the layers of paint that have vanished. The house has its faults of course; my father says his favorite quote about our house comes from an electrician. “There’s a word for houses like these, deathtraps”. For dad, this seems to sum it all up.

A home is a security blanket; it is your only chance at being able to be yourself, without a single soul to witness your odd habits. The place you can be sure will always be there, at the end of the day when you have worn yourself down, it is your chance to recharge. Where you are pretty much free from expectations of the outside world (with the exception of the chores you are given.)

I used to monopolize use of the room in the basement, but now my father has transformed it into his own space, so I have a new appreciation for my own room. Sometimes I wonder what will happen when I leave home, and if my bedroom will stand still, and be the same as I left it. I believe it will remain frozen, a museum of every stage in my life, complete with pictures on the wall tracking my growth. I should know better then to consider this true, as at some point my parents will want to clean away the mess I have made there.

While my room is something I see as an essential room, I see no use in the dining room at all. I am sure my mother has some purpose for it, but it seems to only be a waiting room for paper work, before it is shuffled into my parents’ office at the back of the house. Other then that though, ever room in my house has a specific purpose, even if it may