It still doesn't feel like home? It probably doesn't need to.

Each time the gloom that lurks around in packing my bags and travelling is daunting. As the days creep near, my mood swings like a pendulum ready to strike anyone that’s in the way. Travel should be fun, right? But for me it isn’t. And especially when I have to leave my parent’s house and go back to my place. My home, they say? As much as I try to envision this, it still doesn’t seem like a home without a husband. A husband who is miles away for making everybody’s future a little brighter.

The place that everybody proclaims should be my happy place, why does it seem so distant to me? Haven’t I labored enough hours to convert a room to a home? Why then it feels a struggle to still blend into it? Why does everyone around seem like characters out of a novel that I’ve read so much about but can’t really identify with?

The societal standard for assessing the newly wedded girl’s character for the amount of days she can go by without visiting her parents’ home is downright absurd. Why does it always have to be a sacrifice in order to measure someone’s worth? Why does it have to be the amount of yes-es that will truly define her stature?

For once we need to normalize that a woman spending a good twenty to twenty five years at a place and suddenly moving to a totally different house and atmosphere is owed some tears. She is going to feel isolated and lost. Just like when you move places or cities before marriage. It is normal. It’s going to take some time adjusting to all that life’s throwing at you.

This one is for the newly wedded girls; Invest your time into something that doesn’t revolve around the house or its chores. Laundry, gardening or even getting the grocery doesn’t equate to outside work. You need to step out of the house without thinking what you have left at the house that needs fixing. Revel in the true spirit of being out and about so that once you return, it truly feels home.

I cannot stress enough investing into a place that you dream of with your family or even alone. Make every step count to reach that goal. Don’t wait for the head of the house to die so that you start living your life or spruce up that kitchen just like you saw at some lifestyle blog. Make that happen by building your fantasy house from scratch, either by saving each penny or putting those locked-up four sets of gold that you inherited from your forefathers to use. I would go further to stress to the parents that instead of spending lavishly at a wedding that’s going to be remembered only by Facebook memories popping up, give your child a safe place from the beginning of the marriage so she may believe that it’s going to stay even when her circumstances change