If home is where the heart is, then my home is in my car.

I’m the kind of girl who refers to her car as “he” and her co-worker’s baby as “it.”

Driving the streets of small-town Missouri.

Gunner’s mom brought him to the office one afternoon, and I gawked awkwardly at the bundle in the bassinet. I bluntly refuse to hold babies. Yet friends and family have watched in terror, as I stroke my car’s Tinker Bell steering wheel cover and call the Oldsmobile a “good boy.”

I’ve always had an intimate relationship with my car. I paid hard-earned cash for the beauty at age 20. Someone once told me not to name a puppy unless you intend to keep it. Just days after the purchase, I affectionately named him Sean. He’ll never go back to pound, he’ll be with me until he dies.

My junior year of college, Sean and I spent two months together losing our way in Kansas City. My senior year he drove me through the backwoods of Columbia, as I tried to sort out my life. He brought me to my St. Louis base whenever I needed a taste of home, and he helped me fly when the time came to leave college and start my first job.

To me, that car is the perfect combination of familiarity and freedom.

An old flame once asked why things didn’t work out with us. I told him I’d never love any man as much as I love my career and my car.

Several months later, I’m just starting to comprehend the accuracy of that statement.

Now that I’ve plopped down in rural Missouri for that career thing I’ve always dreamed about, some days the only comfortable and familiar place I have is my car. I sleep in a bright yellow and lime green bedroom. While my Missouri School of Journalism diploma hangs on the wall, it rests just above a border of skateboards. This room was never intended for me, and while I’ve grown comfortable here — it’s not home.

Each day I drive past farms and combines, and I daydream of my city of concrete three hours east. Sure, the inside of the local Applebee’s looks just like every other Applebee’s across the country, including the one near my parents’ home in St. Louis. But the cornfield that sits near it might as well be the rocky surface of Mars.

When I first moved here, friendly faces were nearly as skimp as high-rise buildings. My cell phone always had an eager ex-roommate, parent or sassy gay friend on the other end offering shreds of encouragement laced with a constant “come back” theme. While they tried, my car often provided more comfort.

When I shook my fist at the sky and wondered why I’d ended up in rural Missouri, Sean made sure my radio dialed into Rascal Flatt’s “Won’t Let Go.” When a sour source left me disheartened, my roadly companion blared Bombshell’s “Fight Like a Girl.” Less than two months into my career, my college boyfriend and I split. I suddenly lost the comfort of a regularly scheduled nighttime phone call, a good friend and the last two years of my life. Yet, Sean never deserted me. My favorite boy ensured “Love Done Gone” climbed to the top of the country music charts, and he played it for me daily.

My father, a mechanical perfectionist, has often mocked me for the cleanliness of my car. He sees my backseat full of shoes, reporter’s notebooks and spare clothing as a disgrace to the automotive industry. I see it as necessary. Some people joke they live out of their car, and I almost wish I could. The dusty gray interior is the only familiar space I have in the whole county. I moved to Marshall with two carloads of amenities and minimal furniture. The bed I sleep in is not my own, the dresser I use will stay here when I leave.

As a journalist, my life will always be uncertain. I intend to follow the job. While a boy or my family may not be able to travel with me, thank God my car will. Until the last sputter of his engine, I’ll always have that familiar space.

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