Roots

I cleaned my room this week. Seriously cleaned it--this was no one-day task. Dusted, vacuumed, took everything out of the closet and dresser, everything off of the walls and the bookshelf, rearranged the furniture. I couldn't figure out why I felt the need to do all that until I realized that I've been living in the same house, sleeping in the same bedroom, for nearly two years. Since I left my parents' house for college, I've been used to packing my life into boxes and moving every five months, three months, nine months, eleven months--no wonder I'm needing a change of scenery after 22. I've grown rather attached to this place, though, and to the idea of starting to feel like I belong here. I know this house and all of its idiosyncrasies. I know this neighborhood and its bike trails and its bus schedules. I paid my taxes this year not only in just one state, but for just one employer. I finished the school year knowing, for the first time ever, that I'd be back teaching in the same place in the fall. I have a garden bursting with vegetables. I've been here long enough to see the veggies-to-kitchen scraps-to-compost-to-dirt-to-veggies cycle through. And I, with my tentative roots in this community, finally feel like I'm starting to get as many nutrients out of this soil as I'm putting in. I had gotten so used to being transitory, always coming or going, making excuses for not really connecting, not really investing emotional energy in where I was, telling myself that I wasn't supposed to feel like I belonged because there was always somewhere else that was home. I think I'm finally ready to own this one.