Home.

To some people this means the house they grew up in. The house where they lost their first tooth, left for their first school bus, and tracked their growth spurts. The house where they graduated high school from, and the house they now return to on Christmas Break.

This is not the case for me. When I come home on breaks, I come back to a house I have lived in for less than a year, in a state I have lived in for less than five years.

In fact, in the 20 years I’ve been alive I have lived in nine different houses, and gone to eight different schools. To put it in perspective, I have never gone to the same school for more than two years.

To me, I don’t have a house I can ever consider “home.”

Instead, “home” has become a collection of places and people that have changed over my life.

To me, this is what my “home” is:

Home is my grandpa’s homemade pancakes that taste the same no matter where they’re ate.

Home is the salt-water air on the coasts of Oregon, and it’s the heart of downtown Portland at night surrounded by city lights.

Home is the hot summers I spent visiting family in Iowa on our family farm. A clear June night with a sky full of stars and lighting bugs buzzing around.

Home is where ever my mother’s baskets that have traveled with us one too many times across the country are.

Home is the ice cream runs I make with my dad, no matter what city we live in.

Home is watching Desperate Housewives with my mom and the late night talks we share.

Home is my great grandmother’s house where I learned you can’t always win, but the fun of the game is still worth it. And also that vanilla pudding is great at any hour of the day or night and Christmas music is perfectly acceptable in July.

Home is all of the soccer fields I played on where I suffered through suicide sprints, kicked shins, and the rush of excitement when I scored a goal. Where my team became my family, and my parent’s voices could be heard cheering me on at every single game.

Home is where my dad critiqued my driving, taught me what LCD and GCD was, and made me laugh at the dumbest things.

Home is where my grandma is working on her pottery and my grandpa is fixing something around the farm.

Home is my childhood’s best friend’s house where we stayed up all night playing games like MFK. Home is her dog and her mother’s witty sense of humor.

Home is where I cried to my mom over mean friends and dumb boys.

Home is where my grandparents take me on excursions and adventures throughout Oregon and I have to make sure my seatbelt is on extra tight.

Home is a window seat on the plane to my next destination.

Home is my cousins’ house where I can have life chats and pancakes at midnight, and listen to the sound of a four-wheeler through the humid days.

Home is the pool in the summertime, where the warm sunshine takes away all of the worries in the world.

Home is where my parents and I ate every dinner together at the kitchen table.

These are the things that have created “home” to me growing up.

And the thing that never changed about home was that no matter where I went, my parents were always there. Together, just the three of us, we took on the challenge of constant change.

It wasn’t always easy.

And sometimes I’m sad I don’t have that one house I can look back on and say, “This is where I grew up. This is the house that holds all of my memories.”

However, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Through my childhood I learned that it’s not the walls, the décor, or the rooms that create a home. It’s not the lights or the windows or the couches.

Instead, home is where you feel safe. Home is where you feel like you belong. Home is where you are surrounded with love.

All of the pieces of home that I hold happened in numerous houses, cities, and states throughout my childhood. Some places- like my family’s farm, stayed constant, while others I never looked back on after we moved away.

However, if anything I consider myself lucky that my feeling of “home” can extend to so many places and so many memories. When I’m older I may not have a specific house where I can go back to, but I have places all over the country where I can remember special moments in my life.

From this I’ve learned that home is not really a place after all. Instead it’s a feeling.

And as I grew up, home became my dorm room where I finally had control over where I was living and made saying goodbye to Barker 206 impossible.

Home is my sorority house where I live with my sisters and best friends.

Home is my beautiful campus where I have fallen in love with the people that make my life memorable. And it’s where I decided I was here to stay for more than just two years for the first time in my life.

And when I graduate, home will become something new.

But wherever I go, I know I have strong roots- no matter how spread out they may be, they made me who I am today.

Home sweet home.