The way Home

There's a rusty old toaster sitting next to the stove in our kitchen. We don't use it anymore. Whenever we want to have toast, my brothers and I put spread on each side of the bread and press it down flat in a hot pan until it's the just the right kind of burnt.This is not a post about the right way to get your toast done (although my family may need a lesson on that).This is really a post about getting rid of the damaged toaster or better still, taking it for repairs than settling for burnt toast all the time.The need to fix what is broken or create space for something new is a constant battle that shows no sign of surrendering.And if no one is waving a white flag over our heads, we may have to learn to live through the wounds and make it out alive somehow.I've heard people describe the human body in a million and one ways but "home" is definitely my favorite metaphor and always will be. I feel strongly about the caretaker role people assume the moment other things or people begin to dwell in them.We teach ourselves how to be keepers of things small and big; secrets, birthday and anniversary dates, Polaroids of fading memories and a billion other things we prepare to remember for a long long while.I love the thought of being home to someone else. Of opening doors and waiting with warmth and good food.But it is beginning to dawn on me that not all of us are the right kind of homes. Some people lay for themselves a foundation of storage rooms in their hearts and up, up, up, they set their walls, stacking it full with regret, wrong choices, deeds they were too upset to forgive, days they were too hurt to forget.The things we keep in the storage room, the ones we refuse to scrub and get rid of, are the very things that keep us away from coming home to ourselves.These things happen. People say the wrong things about us when we are not around. People promise and fail and disappoint and do it some more.But if we should plant a tree of remembrance for every time someone wrongs us; we wouldn't have a home. We would have a painfully needless forest that would have to be cleared someday to make us find our way home.Finding our way is essential to our growth, our peace and to this crucial part of a journey we all embark on called "moving on".The hardest part of being offended by someone else is probably the part where we have to forgive.We forgive for a number of reasons but also because it's the only way we are able to set ourselves free from the very thing holding us back: ourselves. Along with our pain and guilt and wounds and anger and resentment. Psychology makes a fair argument on the need for these emotions to be felt and I'm all for it.But after that, then what?Do we bookmark them in thick chapters of record for when we need to reference in the near future? Do we store them in the remaining places of our hearts where we could have kept a reminder to buy cake?This is simple. There are no rules. Or maybe there are. But whatever it is, if it keeps you from being nice and thoughtful, caring and loving, there's most definitely an overflow of misplaced feelings in your storage compartment.Some things need to be cleared out. Soon and fast. Because while we may be doing a good job at keeping people away from our home because of all the ways they made us feel in the past, we lock ourselves out too.It's about time we cleared the wrong storage. The woods are too thick anyway and finding our way home will be hard.But we must find our way.Because home is where all the good things happen. It's where we allow ourselves to feel a thousand ways under the sun and still heal our wounds when we fall. It's where we learn to bend and coil and break and still come out in a shape that doesn't ruin our hearts forever. Home is where we lay down our weapons and surrender to change and new beginnings, setting others free. And most importantly, setting ourselves free.