She

Home is not a place, but a person. She is home. Home is a safe place to land when I feel like I’m going out of my mind with stress. She is a breath of fresh air when I feel like I’m suffocating.

We lay intertwined on my beat up brown leather sofa under a big turquoise comforter from the nineties. The soft moving glow coming from the television is the only light in the room. We stay in a comfortable silence, with only the hushed sounds of Mulder and Scully solving unexplained cases coming from the TV. Just like the time before and every time afterward, I inevitably doze off, lulled asleep by the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. The light of early morning starts to seep through the open window signifying our time to part. Neither of us move. We are too engrossed in the perfectness of the moment. We are in a bubble and none of the impending worries of the next day can encroach upon that. For now, we are together and that’s all that counts.

Eventually we have to part ways. She opens the door and our hands grasp together, not wanting to part, even though our minds know we should. The world is just waking up as she steps out the door into the hazy violet light of dawn. The door clicks softly shut behind her and I hear the low grumble of the engine of her car start up. The crackling of car tires on gravel is muffled as she drives off into the early hours of the morning.

This small moment may seem inconsequential in the string of all the moments that have made up our relationship, but that’s the point. Home to me isn’t about all the big, life-altering moments, but rather the ones in between. Home is about comfort and the familiar. Home is the normal and the everyday occurrences. It is having someone to fall back on when the world gets too tough. She is home.