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The Yarn Harlot’s post about her daughter’s room struck a chord with me. I’ve now moved out of my parents’ house twice. The first time around my sister moved into my room barely after I left. She had her own perfectly good room but mine had the cool built in bookcases and window seat and apparently she had been coveting it for years. She didn’t change much about it. She put up posters of anime characters and koalas but the essence of the room stayed the same. Two years later when I moved back so that I could finish school without acquiring another 10,000 in debt I moved into the office/guest room, a space that was never really mine. When Robyn moved out in March I reclaimed my old room, the one I had painted with my own hands, the one with the bookcases that a family friend installed especially for me shortly after we moved in.

Last weekend I visited my parents’ house for the first time since the move and saw my old room. It’s recently been painted taupe and most of the remnants of my former presence there are gone. And I have to admit, it felt strange. I know this is totally normal (I am 26 after all) but it is still strange to think that it is no longer my home. See, even when I lived away before, my parents’ house was still always referred to as ‘home.’ I was living in either cramped spaces or with roommates and these places never felt like mine. Now however, my parents house really isn’t home anymore. Home is with Andrew and though I am excited and happy about that it's still a little strange.

While we were visiting my parents’ on the weekend my mom started talking about Christmas and the tree. For the past 10 years my family has had two Christmas trees: my mother’s theme tree and the family tree which was decorated with the miscellaneous ornaments my sister and I have collected over the years. For years now Robyn and I have discussed and negotiated over whose ornaments are whose and last weekend my mother asked if I would be taking mine and if we needed to have the second tree. I know I should say it’s time for Robyn and me not to have our tree since neither of us live there but I’m not ready yet. Maybe next year.