Home

When I was a kid, my family moved a lot. Not far, just a lot. By the time I was 11 I had lived in seven different houses and a mobile home. One in Ohio, where I was born, one in Champaign Illinois, five bouncing around the suburbs northwest of Detroit before moving to Plano, Texas.

I changed schools a lot, too and as a result, for those formative years of my life, I was "the new kid" every couple of years. When I go back to visit family in the Detroit area, I sometimes visit some of the places we used to live, but none of them feel like "THE" home.

As an adult with children, I've lived in the same house for 11 years now and both of my children have lived their entire 11 and  7 year old lives here. This is where they learned to walk and use a toilet and play video games and invent games on the hill. This is their childhood home.  If I give them nothing else, they will always have a childhood home. This is one thing I really consider a major accomplishment.

Some, okay, many nights I stand in the backyard facing West. Just looking around and loving this home. We're situated in a canyon with hills rising on either side of us, and from here I can see the lights of the homes on those hills glittering in the darkness. Occassionally a freight train will chug and whistle through what used to be Taylor Yards a couple miles away and I'll be able to hear it just faintly and it will trick me into thinking our neighborhood, a mere four miles from downtown Los Angeles is actually somewhere rural.  It's quiet, it's beautiful. It's perfect.

I love this place. I would happily retire here.

If I can't, for some reason, if we have to go, well - at least we got to spend this much time here. There's a lot to be said for that. I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it does, I can safely say that I have appreciated every moment we've been here.