Home.

I sometimes wonder what life would be like if we would have stayed together. Would we still spend Christmas on Soda Lake Road?... Would we still be happy as a family? Would life have changed and we could have worked through it together? But mostly.. What would our home be like today if it didn't have strangers living in it?

I dream about that house all the time.
I'm there with Jimmy and we have babies.
Shalena and I are walking together down the driveway.
Our dog shasta running down the hallway while my sister and I laugh as she leaps over us like hurdles.

I'm walking through the hallway.. checking every room. Looking for my dad, my mom, my sister. But I'm the only one in the house and its like we never left.

Sometimes I drive there just to stop and look. Remember who I used to be in that house.. and all I've really wanted to do is knock on the door and go inside. Why can't I just let it go and move on? It's just a house.. People move out of houses all the time. I don't want to ever let go of who we were there... a family together.

And what I really longed for since we left there to make new lives seperately... is the feeling of home.

That feeling of warmth that you run to when you're sick.. or heartbroken.. or you really need a break from your hectic life.. back to the place where you spent all your time as a child.. playing in the yard.. pressing your hands into the wet cement.. riding your bike without training wheels for the first time. That familiar place that is much like two arms wrapping so tightly around you right as you walk through the front door.

I miss it so much that it hurts.

For a long time after the divorce I felt like I was floating. Just floating through my life not even living. It was like I was a person but without a soul. A soul that I knew was in there somewhere so deep and I couldn't find or reach it. I would stay at my mom's new house for two weeks and as soon as I started feeling like I wasn't just a visitor there, like I might be home.. I'd have to pack up and leave again to go to my dad's new house that still felt new.

It might not make any sense at all, but as soon as I found Jimmy.. I felt those two arms wrapping around me.. it was like I was walking through that front door again on Soda Lake Road. It was like I was finally home. I cannot put into words the love I have for him.

For four years he was the person I wanted to be with when I was sad, sick.. or just needed someone to talk to. He would hold my hand and kiss my forehead.. And he always has this way about him that makes me feel like even if the world was ending it's gonna be okay somehow. We had our on and offs and I couldn't understand why... but now I know. We were sorta growing up together instead of growing apart. Ups and downs... Like most couples.

Then all of a sudden, my home got really dark.

I want to say first of all that to anyone who has experienced the nightmare of what addiction can do to a loved one.. It might be the worst thing in the entire world. Especially when you don't understand it and you're living in a constant nightmare. Every day is a downward spiral into a really deep dark hole. Every minute you're waiting to hear good or bad news because you never know if today is the day they will decide to turn away from it or let it take their life completely. You beg the person you love to stop hurting themselves and all you can do is hope they hear you through the unexplainable state of mind they are in.

He was my home. and he was drowning.

They say that heroin is the most addicting drug. And as I was learning of all the secrets in his life.. Someone told me that if he died of overdose, I could deal with the grief by knowing he died in the best way possible because heroin addicts didn't feel the pain. That statement is what made me really wake up to the facts of what the truth really was. I couldn't really even believe what was happening in my life. For a period of time.. when people lent me a shoulder to cry on, that's really all I could do was cry.

But I knew that the only thing I could do for him was to be by his side. So thats exactly what I did. And that's exactly what I will continue to do. We went to a doctor and he's been sober for almost a year now, and I can't tell you how proud I am of him for that. He has had such a hard struggle that most people can't overcome and he's really learned a lot and become the person I know and love again.

Someone asked me.. "Haley are you really willing to deal with the fact that he will be a recovering addict for the rest of his life?"

And all I could really think was... aren't we all recovering from something? I mean really. Think about it. Maybe we aren't all addicts. And maybe we haven't been that low. But we have all been hurt in some way that makes us human. And we recover. But I know that I couldn't recover from anything if I didn't have someone by my side who loved me.

If you know me.. You know how passionate I am about art. And in the past few months my family and friends have been a little shocked by the choices I've made to change my life and be with Jimmy. And I know some of you have felt let down by the fact that I left the career I loved as an artist.. and I know I let down a lot of my friends and co-workers, but I hope someday you'll understand that I'm a girl in love with this incredible boy who loves me too.

And he is my home.