When You Come Home...

I was standing, quite squashed and uncomfortable, on the Red Line several hours ago.

Today has been a long day.  And a bit challenging.  I had to utilize a great deal of will power to refrain from referring to some of my students as fucking morons with an oddly misplaced set of priorities.

So, I was glad to be four train stops away from my apartment and sweatpants.

But, if you had been on this train and noticed me you would not have realized that my feet hurt and my bag was pulling on my shoulder incision in an uncool way, and that I was frustrated with half of my students.  You would have seen me smile.  And this is why: I was thinking about the fact that everyone can be greeted by love when they come home.

For many people this is a person.  My parents have each other.  My cousins and close friends have their spouses and ridiculously beautiful children (seriously, these children are all ridiculously beautiful).

Or this greeting of love may come from a critter.  My brother has his noble dog, Frank.  My parents have two dogs, a regal gentlehound and a real-live muppet.  Every time these humans open the door they are attacked by puppy kisses and excited thumps.  A two hour absence is just as significant as two weeks.

But what about those of us who come home to an empty house.  No lights are turned on.  No one notices if the space stays empty and cold.  There is no greeting, especially not one filled with love.

I come home to an empty apartment.  I have been doing this for eight months.

But.

Every time I walk through the door I am greeted by love.  It is the wedding and birth announcements that hang on my refrigerator, sharing a magnet with Lily's art.  It is the mahogany table that holds my keys, and has held the keys of five generations of Hartridges.  It is the red framed carousel print that hung in my Aunt Marie's house and is now propped against my wall.  It is a Venetian mask from Italy, tea cups from Mexico, a vase from Connecticut, an Aspen leaf from Colorado - all selected for me when my loved ones traveled.  It is the Mardi Gras beads woven in a fig tree.  It is books.  Shelf after shelf of words that traveled the country with me.  It is, and I do not exaggerate, framed pictures of each person I love so dearly - frames fighting tattered books for coveted shelf space.

Perhaps, you argue, that the greeting of love must come from a living entity - well, I have that, too.  It is the flower budding on my shamrock that has died four times and somehow finds motivation to resurrect itself.  It is the pretties that I always keep in bloom on my coffee table.  It is the new little buds on a branch used for Elle's birthday party and sparkly ornaments that hang on the tree that has stuck by my side for eleven years, far outlasting any romantic relationship I have known.

We become so focused on what we are missing.  What we think should be in our lives.  We compare to others.  Want what they have.  Pity ourselves a bit when we don't have it.  And this is silly.  All of us have so much love that is greeting us - we just have to remember to notice.