by Kelli Bowen
Where most feels like home? I was asked this last week and I have been rolling this idea in my mind for the past week. I feel like that is still yet to be determined. If I’m being honest, I’ve been rolling this idea around my whole life.
As a kid, I couldn’t wait to leave my childhood home. I was going to leave and go as far as I could. It was the '80s and lack of abundance and loved ones with illness weaved throughout my youth. As soon as I was able, I moved across the state, then I moved across the country.
A little shy of a year after leaving, I moved back to North Dakota. It turns out, I love North Dakota! I met Hubby, we married, adopted some dogs, had a couple kids, throughout this, we bought and sold a few houses.
Our first home was a rental in Fargo, which we had carte blanche to decorate how we wanted. Truth be told, we were improving the property for the owner and making it more of a home. Then we bought our first house: an 1886 house in a small town. We fixed the house between jobs and pregnancies. This is where I discovered I like orange dining rooms and old woodwork. We traded the 1886 for a little yellow farmhouse.
The farmhouse felt most like home to Hubby. We ripped out linoleum, painted, and ripped out the most-nonsensical kitchen peninsula we’ve ever seen. After a garage fire and a birthday party ending in a fractured skull, we weren’t convinced the little yellow farmhouse wasn’t cursed or trying to kill us.
We traded the farmhouse in for the beautiful house in town. It was a beautiful house in a beautiful culdesac with beautiful neighbors. The problem with beautiful: it’s uninspiring.
A year ago, we traded our uninspiring, beautiful house in for our Western adventure. We are still looking for our next house. I’d like to think I could live in an airstream with vintage curtains, but realistically I have too many clothes and shoes. I have clothes in different area codes!
So, where feels like home? Home is next to Hubby, the girls, and the dog. Home is playing Scrabble with my best friend or singing karaoke in a small-town bar, laughing until someone snorts. Home is listening to birds sing as I talk to those I can no longer see. Home inspires. Inspires what?
That is yet to be determined.
Kelli makes her home in Billings County with her husband, two daughters and a dog. She works for North Dakota's #1 tourist destination by day and tries to be an alright mom, wife, friend, and writer by night.
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