BETWEEN THE LINES: TAKING SHELTER IN MAKING NEW HOUSE A HOME

Although it's a place I'm comfortable in, my new house doesn't yet feel like home.

I drove by my home the other day without stopping.

Although I finally closed on a deal and bought a house I'd been renting for about six months, it wasn't this house I call home. At least not yet.

While the real-estate transaction had its ups and downs, which come with the creation of paperwork and financial forms, it was a deal I'm proud to have completed. I have joined the ranks of America's homeowners.

But the house I frequently refer to as my home is a two-story frame in Scott City. It was the only house I can really remember living in as a child. It's the house where the bus stopped on my first day of kindergarten and the house I went home to during college breaks. I can tell you where all the flowers are planted, where my swing used to hang from the tree out front, and where my pets are buried.

And now my home -- that house in Scott City -- is for sale again. I wasn't too upset when my brother announced the news last week. But I cried when my father told us he was thinking about selling the place. And when it came time for him to move out I couldn't even be around to help. It would have been too hard to see through my tears.

Even though I've lived in apartments and other places for the last seven years, the house in Scott City was really my home.

Now I have to create new memories in my new home to make it truly mine. It's a place I feel comfortable in, but it doesn't quite feel like home yet.

After reading about all the Chinese flooded out of their homes or the Irish, Albanians or Serbs who have had their homes bombed and destroyed by fighting, I realized that having a home is a luxury. You can always find a place to live, but finding a place to call home is entirely different.

For some people in the world, there isn't a place they can call home. They live in city parks, huddled in makeshift cardboard houses underneath highways or in shelters. Some are trying to hide from problems while others are simply trying to escape from them. Home can sometimes create more chaos than comfort.

Cape Girardeau's Safe House for Women is about to help a lot of women by providing a transition from the shelter for the women and children who leave an abusive situation. After leaving the safety of the shelter, the Safe House will now offer a transitional setting for the women.

These are women who really need to find the comfort of home. They need a place that offers them stability, independence and comfort while being affordable enough that they don't starve or seek help from their abuser.

Offering a transition from the shelter to an apartment setting is a good plan. It will take some time to see how everything works out, but these apartments may mean more than people think. They will not only offer shelter but peace of mind as well.

A home isn't an easy place to find, for any of us, but once it's found it is a place to be cherished.

~Laura Johnston is a copy editor for the Southeast Missourian.