Home Sweet Home

We were asked to answer a themed question on an architectural or built space that holds a specific significance or symbolism in our day to day lives. As I thought about it, I realized that I encounter many different spaces in my day to day activities but none of them are really dear to me. There is school, the pharmacy I work at, relative’s homes, my boyfriend’s home, my old high school… none of them seemed to inspire me. Therefore, I will write about the place that I am most familiar with, my house. A house can be many different things for a person. It can be a place that one cannot wait to move out of, it can be someone’s sanctuary, someone’s pride and joy. However, my house is the only place where I feel one hundred percent at ease. It is my comfort zone.

I have lived in the same house since the beginning of elementary school. The house looks like a duplex. The white walls with a green roof and balconies make it look like a very modern house, but the inside highlights its history. The floors and doors are made of varnished wood and the walls are all painted in conservative colors. The cracking, uneven floorboards and the heavy wooden doors show us that the house was built well over a century ago. It is where I grew up during my childhood and adolescent years. When I look back at my years spent here, my head is filled with memories. The good: our Christmas’ family reunions, birthdays, diner with family members, mornings when I slept in, quality time with my siblings, gossiping with my friends in my room and the bad: fighting with my parents, mourning the loss of my Rottweiler, arguing with my brother and sister and so on.

My peers will never perceive my home the way I do because of my mother’s career as well as the fact that they have never lived here. Our house is divided into two sections. My family lives on one side, and nine older people who suffer from schizophrenia as well as bipolar disorders live on the other side. My mother’s job is to take care of people with mental disorders. I have grown up with these people and they are a part of my life here at home. Yes, they might act weirdly from time to time, but they looked after me when I was a child. They would bring us to the local drug store, tell us stories and show us how to knit. I have never considered them to be outsiders. Others that come into our house believe we run an asylum, that these people are abnormal and nuts. However, they will never understand. My childhood would have been very different without them.

All in all, my house is my sanctuary. I associate my house to my family. It is the one place that will always make me feel safe no matter what the situation is.