3981

3981
My house has never changed, but my home has.  All my life the address has remained the same, but the home there has changed.  Changed from the inside out, because no outside force could effect it as much as the forces within.  The look, feel, association, everything of this address has changed in my eyes, starting inside the walls of the house located there and flowing out into the world and medium-sized yard around it.  Nothing ordered the change and there is no clear cause of it; whether it was born of a dissatisfaction with what was before or a desire for there to be more in the future, the change felt completely natural and seamless  to me.  All I know is that my home has changed, starting from the inside and myself and rippling outward.  My home has been the most influential location in my life, and I have influenced it just as much as it has influenced me.
At first, my home was a house.  It wasn't deep and complex and there were no hidden meanings to it.  Children don't generally see things as having depth or a meaning below the surface.  I had not grown up yet, and my home had not had a chance to grow in my eyes.  In my home, I have a father and mother, a brother, and later in life, a sister.  My home, like the best homes also had food, shelter, and the things I loved.  As a child, I spent my happiest times inside my plastic siding-coated cocoon, and there was no reason to travel outside.  My world was defined by my walls, my yard, and greatest of all, my family.  I was a member of a unit that was a small thing but still bigger than myself alone.  There was no reason to break that unit to find things beyond.  That was how it was at that time, at least.
Years passed.  Not very many, of course, because I haven't seen very many.  But enough years for the outside world to win a few victories and to seep through the small cracks in the siding.  The outside world that seeped in consequently pulled the inside out in small amounts back through those cracks.  The outside was school, and working, and commitments, and popularity, and something called homework that really had very little to do with home and more to do with school.  These things that seeped in grew dissatisfaction within.  The dissatisfaction was inside myself as a longing for more of the things I had seen on the outside.  Suddenly being a member of my small unit was not enough.  Individualism had come in a devastating wave and had left a need to prove myself, alone and freestanding as I was in the new world.
Home was still important, but it was no longer the "perfect world" it had once been.  The house itself was small, cramped, rickety.  My family changed most of all, as I clashed with the members of it more and more often.  I noticed more and more their own unhappiness, particularly that of my mother.  She is the one I have fought with the most over the years, yet she is the family member I feel the closest to.  I noticed her own dissatisfaction with our home on occasion and could feel her own sadness even when she seemed angry.  I no longer fit like a puzzle piece beside her and the other members of my family.  The outside world had warped and changed my shape.  Still, that address remained the same, and I returned there at the end of every day.
My few short years in high school have been hard on my home.  It has changed more in these years than ever before, and now my vision is good enough to see it happening.  My hindsight has improved also, and for the first time I can look back on my home's changes, my life's changes, with objectivity.  I can read the changes more for what they really meant and not as the ground shaking matters of importance they seemed to be at the time.  The most important part of this new understanding is the ability to comprehend the complex relationship I and the place I call home have had.  It has influenced me and shaped my personality, but no more than I have done for it as through my own changes.   I have changed it's meaning in my own mind and in the minds of my family members.  They have also changed "home" in their time there in their own view of it and in my view of it.
So, I have begun to realize that my home was never as shallow and simple as it once seemed, nor as unsatisfactory and limited.  Home is as constantly changing as those who inhabit it, as big or small as you want it to be, something as much a part of myself as my skin that also grows and flexes with me.  There is no need for me to describe my home is physical limitations.  Visually, it is as any house, a roof and walls.  My house is plain and pale in comparison to my home because my house has seldom changed and grown as drastically as my home has. I've started to  realize all of these intricate things about my home towards the end of my time there.  The final stage of my life in at my familiar address is the stage where I realize it's true value and realize that the clock is counting down on my time there.  My close relationship with my home will be distanced on the day I leave to find a second residence, so the final days I have in my first home are reminiscent and melancholy.
For the final fact I give on my residence, I give only the number 3981 and not the whole address.  My home is mine and not anyone else's to hunt and find. Also, my home is nothing as formal and unchanging as an address.  In my mind, it is as short and simple as a four-digit number.  As seemingly understated and plain, but complex below its surface.  It can mean many different things depending on the viewer like a number can, and can change in as many different ways depending on who uses it.  The address of my residence never changed, but the home there changed below the surface because of the family that lives there, and the family that lives there changed as well because of the influence of "home".  I have been influenced the most by my home and have influenced it also in return.