When asked to think of “home,” a lot of people picture either a place they are now living or their childhood homes. To many, home is a specific building, a vision of comfort and a vault filled with memories.

When I am asked to think of “home,” one particular place doesn’t quite come to mind.

I’ve lived in eight different buildings, comprised of houses, apartments and a dorm room. Next year, the count will go to nine, adding a tally in the apartment column.

My mom recently moved to Texas. The home I lived in from sixth grade through graduation now belongs to a new family.

The reason for the high number of buildings I've lived in can be attributed to my parents getting a divorce just before I started kindergarten. Take the average number of times a family moves, and double it.

I switched houses every other week, packing bags full of my favorite clothes to take back and forth.

One house was in walking distance from coffee shops, Saturday farmers' markets and my guitar lesson studio. The other had a pool in the backyard and was four minutes away from my best friend.

I didn’t mind living in two places at once, in fact, I became so used to it, that I think it would be weird to end up staying put for too long.

I learned to look at the situation like the best of both worlds.

I lived in the boondocks and a city with 80,000 people. I had my school district hometown and my “I’m a regular at the local businesses” hometown.

When people ask me where I’m from, I have a mini identity crisis every time.

The summer before my freshman year of college, I worked as a resident camp counselor, staying overnight for nine weeks of the summer, sleeping in a bunk bed in a platform tent.

Needless to say, a lack of structure has become my structure.

People will say home is a feeling, but to a lot of people that feeling is the warm fuzzy memory of a happy house where they baked cookies with their mom or threw a ball to their dog in the backyard.

When I say, “home is feeling,” what I really mean is home is when I am comfortable in a place and feel truly at peace with being the completely unadulterated version of myself.

I mean that I’m surrounded by people that make me feel loved, and supported.

I mean that I can let my guard down, if even just slightly, and grow from my mistakes.

I can find home in a place I’m visiting for the first time or not find the right home feeling in a building I’ve lived in for years.

I can feel at home anywhere in the world depending on who I’m surrounded with.

Likewise, if the wrong people enter a place I consider a home, I can start to feel unwelcome in my own living space.

I’ve left pieces of my heart all over this country.

A large part of my heart lies in Madison, the feeling visiting evoked in me led to my decision to attend UW. Part of my heart lies in my boondocks school district; the place that took me in as a sixth grader and taught me numerous life lessons. Part of me lies, and will forever lie, in the city my dad lives in; the city I’ve been in longer than any other town.

I’ve left fragments of my heart with quite a few Wisconsin state parks due to the comfort and peace I’ve felt in nature.

I feel at home in parts of Texas; a state I grew up visiting frequently to see relatives.

I’ve even left part of my heart in Nashville Tennessee, a city I’ve only stayed in for several days, one time, but a place that really spoke to my love for music and vibrancy.

Houses are just buildings.

But home is a concept that means something different to each of us.

Learn to love the way a location can resonate with you or the way groups of people can make you feel with their actions.

And if you meet other people who say “home isn’t a place,” understand that place attachment is not something that everyone easily develops.

It’s not always a sad thing, sometimes your view of what is unstructured and stressful is someone else’s comfort.

My comfort has been adapted to listening to how I feel rather than associating it with my surroundings. I am truly grateful for all the years of abnormality, for it has shaped me into who I am today.