Home.

A settled couple who Aaron and I know very well are in the midst of a complete surface renovation of their home.  New paint, new table varnish, new floors.  The floors are probably everything they always wanted.  Made with local wood (go Local!) it IS pretty. In fact, too pretty.  To the family who had them installed, those floors are horizontal art.  When friends were invited over, they did the obligatory oohs and aahs before sitting around a table that was, unfortunately, sitting atop an old sheet, lest the chairs scratch the new floors. 
I can understand the anxiety, and I don't begrudge them that.  I have a new couch that means the girls and I won't be snuggling up to watch movies and eat popcorn on it for some time. 
What bothers me is this hesitation to really live in our houses.  Instead we act like visitors, on edge waiting for the inevitable first scratch of the surface.  What is the point of filling our homes with items we find too precious to use them comfortably?  Let me reiterate that I am asking this of myself as much as I do of others.
I've been craving comfort for a while now.  I've always striven for it, but the more time I spend longing for it, the more aware I am that it's something that has been lacking in my life.  I hope that it rests somewhere inside of us and that we can bring it out wherever we may be, regardless of our surroundings.  I worry that the ability to do that is so Buddha-esque that by the time I reach that place it will be when I'm sitting in a diaper that the night nurse has just put on me.
Anyway.  I am in Canada at the moment.  In my mother's home.  In a couple of days I will be calling the Delta Hotel in Toronto home.  A couple days after that I will call my mother in law's place home.  And then, do I return to Germany and call it home?  I am so hesitant to call it that.  I want a place where I am comfortable, a place that will be hospitable to daily conundrums, but I'm not confident that I can do that in any form of temporary lodging.  Aaron is in Glasgow at the moment, being interviewed for a permanent position. Will Glasgow be the place where we finally throw our boots?  Even permanent loses its meaning sometimes.

Isn't self actualization fucking cloying?  I'm off to remedy this with a healthy dose of rest and relaxation.  By which I mean a benzoid and a glass of wine.  By which I probably actually mean a cigarette and cold coffee.  I'll still take the benzoid though.  Those things are great.