“There must be some kind of mistake,” I told the unsympathetic voice in the University Residence Department. “I have been assigned to a dorm room with two other people. There are three of us assigned to a two-person dorm room!” I wasn’t exactly sure what I expected, but I at least wanted my own bed. I asked the lady on the phone for another place to live, and thus began a pursuit, which continues to this day, for permanent housing.

The only available sleeping space was on the floor, and so that is where I spent the first semester of my college nights.

After one night of the three-students-in-a-room-built-for-two, I was reassigned to another room, this time with only one other student who, I soon discovered, was extremely disappointed that he had been given a roommate. Nothing personal, of course, it’s just that, like, he was an upperclassman, and, like, a resident-assistant, and had already, like, built permanent shelves where my, like, bed should have been. Now it was two students in a room remodeled for, like, one.

“I’m not sure where you’re going to sleep,” he said as we stood surveying the room together. The shelves he built on the wooden platform that should have been my bed were impressive and were packed with books and pictures and music and a stereo and a television. The only available sleeping space was on the floor, and so that is where I spent the first semester of my college nights — on a foam mattress, half of me under my built-in desk, the other half extended just short of the door. It should come as no surprise that I only spent one semester at that university and never again lived in a dorm.

Next was a one-bedroom duplex on Garland Street, an easy walk to my new campus, and, more importantly, only a couple of blocks from Mr. Burger. Location, location, location! The floor plan was rectangular, like a wide hallway that transitioned from one room to the next. You started in the living room, then proceeded through French doors to the bedroom, then down a short hallway with the bathroom on the right, then suddenly you arrived in the kitchen. I had only one roommate at 600 Garland Street, and I had my own bed. This duplex was old and cheap, a combination that usually means hazardous, as in pieces of the bathroom ceiling falling on your head while you’re brushing your teeth.

The main problem with duplexes is that they make you think you have your own place, but don’t be fooled by the two mailing addresses — it is one house, and you are sharing it with whoever is living at 600½ Garland Street. And if they like listening to Pat Metheny at full volume well past midnight when you’re trying to sleep, well, then, you’re going listen as well. But of course, they get to listen to your music selection the next morning, maybe something from the Grease soundtrack or Television Theme Songs from the ‘70s. I lived there about three years, getting out before it finally burned down, the asbestos having failed to protect it.

Next was the first two-bedroom stop in my housing journey, an old apartment complex on Nettleton, or Nettleship, Nettle-something. This place was so old that our unit still had shag carpeting, but the ceiling was staying put and nobody was blasting Pat Metheny at me. I figured this would be where I would spend the last two semesters of my college experience, but, as it turned out, I lasted only one semester, because a friend showed me the brand-new apartments he was planning to move into. “We’d be the first people to live in this apartment!” he told me as I stared in awe at the beautiful new edifice.

“I’m in.”

I can’t remember the name of the apartment complex or even the street, but to this day it remains the newest, freshest place I’ve ever lived, even if only for a few months. The rent was horrendous and I scrambled every month to pull it together, but this place was worth not eating occasionally. I knew it could only get better from here. Soon I would graduate and be gainfully employed and the money would be pouring in, providing the sort of luxury to which I was quickly becoming accustomed.

Except that my first post-college job paid only $200 a week. That, combined with my having no further access to my parents’ income, made renting a luxury apartment out-of-reach. I decided it was time to invest. I took the step and became a homeowner, well, a mobile homeowner anyway. I bought a used, two-bedroom, two-bathroom, 8-wheel house trailer.

Except for the wheels and the Naugahyde-padded counter top, it was very much like the duplex — 12 feet wide, 22 feet long, cold, leaky and paper thin walls — but it was mine. And it was the first place since leaving home that had some permanence to it, although the wheels did diminish that effect. For all the jokes about Southerners living in house trailers I can only say that this one served me well and I sold it a few years later and broke even on the deal, which is more than I can say for anything I’ve ever rented.

From there it was another couple of apartments, nothing nearly as colorful and interesting as the mobile home, nor as sound of an investment. I did make a significant shift in the mid ‘90s when, after getting married, I quit renting apartments and rented a house. This is when I discovered that true permanence is to some degree measured by if you must mow and water your own lawn. I was now a caretaker of land, doing the whole by-the-sweat-of-your-brow thing. I knew I was getting closer to permanent housing, but I still wasn’t there. I was only a sharecropper.

Finally, my wife and I saved enough money to put down a deposit, and we bought the house in which we now live. A cute little place in suburbia, situated a few inches from the nextdoor neighbors’ cute little place, and on it goes for miles. If anything should feel permanent, this should — a mortgage with my name on it, a lawn to mow, no landlord to call for repairs and no wheels. Yet, I’m restless, still looking for something more. Another bedroom maybe? Bigger kitchen? What is it?

Maybe I’m trying to find that home where I grew up, the last place I remember where things were simple, where I felt secure, and, I might add, where I had much less responsibility. Or, could it be that what I’m looking for can’t be found here? Could it be that I’m longing for some other permanence, the Home for which God has placed a hunger in my soul, that calls to me, keeping me unsettled, dissatisfied — that place that seems always to be just beyond my reach.

My temptation is to keep looking backwards at that place or those places — shadows of Home — that seemed to best pacify my longing, forgetting that the dissatisfaction remained there as well, maybe less so, but always there.

Looking back is fine, but Home is ahead of me. And it isn’t another bedroom or more backyard or even fewer wheels that will make it finally the permanence I’m looking for. Rather, it will be in keeping company with Christ — the One who has prepared that place for me. In His presence, I’ll be Home.