Smells a Lot Like Home

To the person I found when I had stopped looking for home,

I know it hasn’t been long enough for another letter, or for any letter, really. But I can’t help smiling like an idiot all over again, like a little kid who has just smiled their brightest. You know I can be like that sometimes. Most of the time, actually. But who’s counting?

I almost always run out of words when I try to say something aloud to someone I want to say it to. Today was no different. I found in you someone I had been looking for without knowing it. And no, this is not my way of saying I love you, or anything remotely close to that.

We spend our lives looking for the thing that clicks. A person walking down the road, a car that has to be ours, a book we fall in love with, someone we could never forget. For me, that thing was books. The comfort and oblivion I found in them mattered more than anything in the world.

Then I lost my way back to them, and with it, my way home. I tried again and again, for hours at a time, but I couldn’t find my way back. Not to the books, not to the beach, not to the mountains, and certainly not to another person.

Then, as they say, just when we give up, we find what we were looking for. I’d be lying if I said I was searching for a loudmouthed, self proclaimed, passive sadist who also happens to be a lovely human being. But I found you. One of the happiest wrong turns of my life.

There were weeks when I spent hours at the beach, listening to music that made my eyes fill with tears. I felt alive. I felt in control of what I wanted to feel, and how I wanted to feel it. I breathed again after a long time. Just like that, I felt free.

Then we met again, and I realized you smelled a lot like the books I used to bury my face in. You felt like home.

I don’t think there’s a word for what you are to me. You aren’t quite a friend, not the one, certainly not a stranger, and not family. You’re someone. For now, let’s call it home.

And no, I’m not saying home is where you are, or making some weirdly sarcastic remark. I mean that you are someone around whom I can breathe.

Let me make one thing clear, sir. Even though I never want to lose this feeling, you are replaceable. Someone else might be better, or not as good as you. But no one will be exactly what we are. That, my love, is what I call home.

I might find other homes, but never one like this. In happiness and sorrow, in darkness and faith, in love and pain, you’ll always find me laughing at you and, obviously, smiling like a fool.

Now, off you go. Another story, another time. Maybe I’ll find you in the words of another letter.

Go get some rest at home. In peace, if you can manage it.

Until another story finds us,

From your friend who is four feet something tall,
S.