living at home after six years on your own is a challenging experience. don't get me wrong, i'm extremely grateful for the free housing and food - it's very generous of my parents to take me back in and provide for me in this way.
and yet...it's like dealing with the most difficult kind of roommates possible. there are rules. there are obligations. there are complicated emotions. no longer can you eat a healthy, normal meal at a reasonable hour. you are obligated to eat dinner after 9pm, with family. no longer can you hide in your room and do schoolwork or talk on the phone. you are required to visit with family friends, grandparents, neighbors who come by. no longer can you be truthful (even lovingly) with those around you. you are bound to stepping on egg shells so as not to trigger an overworked father, or send your on-the-edge mother into a fit of weeping.
it can get tense. and stressful. and people don't really understand.
but in spite of it all, i am thankful for the opportunity to learn again and again how to love my parents in this new and very different way. i am thankful for the opportunity (albeit very trying at times) to be patient with them and recognize my own faults and shortcomings. as this wedding approaches, it will be for me a very significant change in my life. not that it isn't for most people, but because i will leave my parents' house and live with my husband. the separation will not only be figurative, but literal as well. so i continually remind myself of this fact - that i need to love them now and be present with them now because this time will most likely will not come again in such a context.
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