Author: Mark Alexander

I have a list of all the addresses where I’ve lived over the course of my life. Why? Because reasons. Because I’m an anal-retentive bitch.

Including our current residence, I’ve had 38 different addresses, starting with the one I came home to after my birth.

And—like many years ago when I mused this topic in my journal, I got to asking, “What is home?”

What  causes a suite of rooms in a non-descript apartment building on some obscure street to become a home?  That’s a question I was pondering while going over the list of all the places I’ve lived, and which ones stood out as actually being home.

In my mind, home is a place of refuge and sanctuary; a place where I can shut out the world and unwind. It’s a place where I can connect with the energy of those rooms recharge.

The length of time in any given place didn’t seem to have a lot to do with it. Some places that I lived in only a few short months stand out as home, while others that I lived in for years don’t make that mark.

The house where I spent my high school and early college years was definitely home. Even when my sister and I visited the then-for-sale property, I didn’t sense any ghosts, just that same welcoming energy.

Of the eleven apartments I lived in Tucson, only two earned the title of home: the ones I moved into after I split up with both my first and second partners. They were places to regroup, reassemble, and most importantly, ground myself again.

Of the nine addresses in San Francisco I called home, again only two earned the title of home: the first place in the Folsom building, and likewise the first one in the 17th Street building. (In both cases I moved to different digs in the same buildings, perceiving them to be “better,” but they never achieved the same home status as the initial ones.)

In contrast, after I returned to Phoenix, I lived in two separate apartments in the same complex and there, it was the second one who achieved home status. The first one was where I lived while going through cancer treatment, and while it was obviously a place where I could rebuild and recharge, I don’t have a lot of pleasant memories of being there. The second apartment, which I moved into a couple years after my treatments were completed, became home with a capital H—and to this day remains my go-to mental sanctuary.

The places we lived in Denver were nice enough, but again, none of them could be called home in my mind.

And the current house we’re in? After five years, that’s still difficult to say definitively. We have issues with a lot of the aspects of this house, but our landlords—our next door neighbors—are great and in addition to our business relationship I count them as friends. Neither Ben or I are in any hurry to leave, and frankly the thought of packing this place up and moving again is horrific.