Home isn't just a Glee episode

Yesterday, Michele and I had a conversation about our favorite Glee episodes -- yep, your favorite blogger here is far from immune to its musical pleasures -- and mine were Wheels and Home. Probably because both episodes touched on major themes or experiences I've had. The former is pretty obvious but maybe not the latter.

The thing is, for longer than I'd like to remember, I have felt out of place in the various living situations I found myself in. When I was fifteen years old my parents separated and my mom moved me and my sister to an apartment roughly a half hour from our childhood house.

Then out of the blue, she had a serious boyfriend. And quite quickly, I felt really out of place. They played his reggae music really loud and turned sporting events so loud that I couldn't hear the movie I was watching. To my eyes he was treated like a king, while she acted like his handmaiden.

I made it clear that I disliked the situation -- and him -- and I was the one who was ostracized. I spent whatever time I could in my room -- whichever makeshift room it happened to be at the moment -- and hoped for someone to rescue me. 


That someone was a large something: Temple University. This past August I moved into my freshman year dorm room and met my roommate.

She was polite but we never got along that well. She tolerated me at best. Of course, it probably didn't help that the few times she invited me out in the beginning of the year, I turned her down because I was visiting my then-boyfriend at his house out of town.

There, at his mother's house near Lancaster, PA, I felt at home. Then we broke up on Thanksgiving for reasons I'd rather not rehash here and now. I haven't been back to his house since. And I'm guessing that it wouldn't feel the same.

Things continued awkwardly with my roommate through the rest of the year. Then, when I wasn't chosen to be an RA, I asked my mother if I could live with her. After all, she lived five minutes by car from my campus. Her only answer? Her boyfriend -- whom I still disliked -- was moving in at the end of the month.

Clearly, I was unwelcome. I had hoped then that my dad might help me pay for an off-campus apartment but no such luck. So alas, I moved into his house on May 8th. Six days later, Chris and I started dating. I've been splitting my time between my dad's house -- Michele has since moved in with us -- and Chris' grandmother's house where he lives right now.

And I don't know that I feel at home in either place. I mean, I love my room here at my dad's and I love spending time with Chris at home, cuddling and such, but I don't get the sense that I'm where I ought to be.

In my quest to become the girl I want to be, I feel like getting a place of my own or at least one where I feel unquestionably like I belong is super important. I just don't know what to do about it.