The Importance of Home

It hit me today...while in the car commuting. A song came on the radio and I started to cry. Maybe it was the contemplative mood I was in or the lack of sleep due to unpacking. I'm not sure. But there it was.

Home.

What makes a home? Why are we so attached to them? Why do we feel like they are more than just wood, plaster, paint and stuff? Do homes have memories? Do they remember the people who once lived in them?


I know they say you can’t go home again
I just had to come back one last time
Ma’am I know you don’t know me from Adam
But these handprints on the front steps are mine

Up those stairs in that little back bedroom
Is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar
I bet you didn’t know under that live oak
My favorite dog is buried in the yard

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

Mama cut out pictures of houses for years
From Better Homes and Gardens magazine
Plans were drawn and concrete poured
Nail by nail and board by board
Daddy gave life to mama’s dream

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I could just come in I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

You leave home and you move on and you do the best you can
I got lost in this old world and forgot who I am

I thought if I could touch this place or feel it
This brokenness inside me might start healing
Out here it’s like I’m someone else
I thought that maybe I could find myself
If I walk around I swear I’ll leave
Won’t take nothing but a memory
From the house that built me

Sung by Miranda Lambert

The house that built me is an old one. The floorboards creak sometimes. The stairs 'talk' to you as you go up or down. The sun warms the kitchen from the inside out..... that house feels like the safest place in the world. When I was little I told my parents I wanted to live there when I grew up.... thinking of it still makes me smile and I will always love that house.