Plates

I bought my little Subaru five summers ago and happily moved the license plates from my POS Tempo to my new upgrade. I've had the same plates since two weeks after 9/11 and through my six moves in four years, they were my constant. I kept my car registered to my father's address as he was still a co-signer on my title and I moved so often it wasn't worth the money to change them with me. And so there they were, a little piece of Virginia no matter where I was; proof I had a place to go home to.
Today I finally got around to switching my car to North Carolina tags. I avoided it; North Carolina doesn't issue a front plate and that drives me crazy. But I needed to and so I did.
I picked up my lone little plate at the DMV office inside a mall that looks like it was shabby and mostly empty even when it was built in 1985. I took it out to my car and, sitting in my driver's seat, I burst into tears.
I love where I live; I believe that this is the closest thing to a sense of home I've ever had. But that simple act of switching two plates for one was an admission that I was one step farther from my father's house.

And really, he is what I know of home.