There is an old, green, wooden hope chest in my room wrapped in cream wallpaper with a rural farm life scene printed on it. No, it is not my style, but it is still near and dear to my heart. Over the years it has been filled with all sorts of things.
Blankets, board games, and whatever else we could throw in there during the move. It wasn't until recently that I began to fill it with things for my future and hope for the years to come. I loaded it with cherished family goods and neatly wrapped porcelain china for my home one day, glass salt and pepper shakes the size of my forearm because I thought they were interesting, and a massive quilt hand stitched by my great grandmother.
Although this hope chest is full of eclectic, sentimental goods, I appreciate what is on the outside of this wooden crate more than what is inside. In between the farmhouses and alphabet lettered wallpaper scene, is a phrase.
"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."
I always thought that home was the house you grew up in as a child into your teenage years. You know, the house where your childhood arts and crafts are stored in decorative boxes, your favorite stuffed animal is still on your neatly made bed, and high school yearbooks are beginning to collect dust on the white oak shelves since your absence in college.
This is the house that you parents are supposed to grow old in together so you can come back to visit them with your children one day. This is the house filled with so many memories. But, this is just a house.
This is not a home anymore.
Having lived in five different "homes" over the past year and a half, I've struggled with the idea of what truly makes a house a home.
If locations and buildings can turn into "home" from time to time when the job is asked of them, and family members and friends alike can waltz in and out of these dwellings and your life, then what even is a home? If none of these elements are ever consistent, what is home?
Home is a feeling.
It is not a traditional, colonial, two story brick home. It is not an apartment on the second floor. It is not a cramped dorm room shared with strangers. It's not a fixer-upper on the corner. And it's not a 70s inspired wood paneling rancher. It's not any of these exteriors. Hell, it's not even what is inside those cubes.
Home is laughter. Home is a warm hug or a cup of tea which might as well be the next best thing if we're being real here. Home is the bright light piercing through the blinds early in the morning serving as a well-needed reminder that each day is a new day. Home is where you are loved.
Home is where everything is right in this mayhem we call life, even if just for a split second.
One of the best things about home? It can be anywhere.
Being a feeling, home is not confined to walls, bricks, or Pinterest worthy aesthetics. It can be at a coffee shop or record store. It can be in the middle of a sunflower field or on top of a mountain. It can be in the heart of downtown surrounded by strangers or with your closest and dearest friends.
I've learned one important thing during my time as an unexpected nomad of sorts this past year and a half. Make every resting place a nesting place.
Coming from the girl who keeps folded cardboard boxes under her bed, just in case, the call to move arises again, it is easier said than done to settle into each new place. But, it's worth it.
Hang that photo on the wall! Buy your favorite plants to sit on your bookshelf! Paint an entire room navy blue with your best friend! Play your favorite music in the shower, and sing at the top of your lungs! Cook your favorite meal and savor each bite as fragrant spices filter throughout the entire house.
Take a deep breath before your head hits the pillow each night knowing that whether or not you believe it, you have things worth being thankful for - one of which being that even for just this moment, you are home.
