I have lived different places in my life and always attached where my home was to my identity. This is common, when you tell someone where you are from it gives that person an idea of who they think you are. This of course is a generalization and usually isn’t accurate but it happens and that’s life. The problem I struggle with is that I don’t actually know which place is home to me. From hot summer beach days on the Cape, middle school projects on my dining room table in New Hampshire, running through sprinklers on the golf course where the condo I lived in is and learning the most valuable life lessons at camp I can’t figure out which place is most important, influential or which best fits into the definition of “home.” What is a home? Some people would say it’s the place you feel the most comfortable, the place you’ve lived the longest. Others would say it’s the place where the most members of your family live. Maybe it’s where you feel the most like yourself. I have never gotten a strong instinct or pull to one place more than another like I imagine some people do. All of these places are special to me and have an equal value. I can’t remember a time that being “homesick” has meant to anyone missing coordinate points that you would see on a map. Homesickness is missing someone you love or something you like to do, eat, etc. and associating the place they are or the place that happens with them or that. The word home is simply a term to describe being in a state of comfort.

Since graduating high school and actually while still in high school, I have succeeded at avoiding being in New Hampshire, where I went to school, on vacations and over the summer. I don’t know what it is about me but I don’t want to be settled in the same place for extended periods of time. Gone are the days I want to sleep in my own bed. Am I allergic to the idea of having a home?

This topic has been on my mind a lot lately as I struggle to make Boston home. Homesickness is an unfamiliar feeling to me but I do miss waking up every morning to breakfast with my whole family in beautiful Rock Harbor in Cape Cod and going to the beach all day before my night waitressing shift. I miss having extra money and not having to pay rent. I don’t know if that makes me homesick but it does make it harder for this idea of home to fit into city life. “Home” might just be what you are accustomed to. Anyways here I am! In this beautiful city that I love more and more everyday. When I’m back at school I can picture myself reminiscing about the days I could get cookies at 3 in the morning and calling Boston my home.

The dictionary has three noun definitions of the word home. The first focuses on home meaning a place where someone resides long- term, the second I interpret as a place where your emotional needs are met and the third is a place for homesickness to develop for. Ultimately I have settled on the theory that “home” is just an idea. You can be anywhere in the world and make/call it home. All you have is yourself in life so you might as well believe that your home is wherever you are!