"Home is where the heart is" is one of the most cliche statements ever, but it contains a half truth. Sure, "home" is not a place, but it seems a lot more convenient when it is a tangible point on a map. As I have grown up, my sense of home has shattered because I cannot pin "home" down as one place.
I spent the first 15 years of my life living in a small-ish house on a lake in a suburban city in Michigan. It wasn't the typical ranch or two story, but it worked. At 15, my parents divorced, resulting in the first move of my life. I began living with my mother in an apartment for most of the week while returning to my childhood home and my father on the weekend. The constant moving made me sort of resent both the house and the apartment because I was never able to stay at either for very long.
As high school continued, I found solace in the movie theater that was in walking distance to my mother's apartment. I went there at least once a week and jokingly began referring to it as my third home. Only I wasn't joking; I felt more at home at the theater than in either of my real homes. These pseudo-homes popped up more and more as high school went along: the art room at school, friend's houses, an independent theater a few towns over, a video rental store--the list goes on. These places all offered me more comfort than the real house and apartment, which in turn really just made me kind of sad.
High school came to a close and I found myself facing something that would shatter my perception of home even more; I committed to a college in Georgia, a state I had never even been to. I lost sleep the summer before freshman year, fearing I'd never adjust to Georgia, never make any friends, and pine for my many homes in Michigan. The opposite happened. The day I stepped foot into Savannah, Georgia, I knew it was truly home. I had no fear, no sadness. I no longer had to move between the house and the apartment, I could sleep in the same bed every night. Here, I did not separate locations into mini "homes;" Savannah itself was home.
As my freshman year went on, I missed my friends and family in Michigan greatly, but I really felt no feelings for the place itself. I've just returned for the summer and I face yet another change in what was "home:" my childhood home had been torn down last summer to make way for a new, big house. When I walked into it, I should have been excited, instead I felt a little alarmed. Yes it is beautiful, but it is not mine. It is my father's, my grandparent's. I have never lived in a big house; I am not meant for it. Everywhere I go in my hometown, I feel like a stranger now. I try my hardest to downplay these feelings because I know they can be misinterpreted by my loved ones as an attack against them (it is not). I love my family and I am so excited to be with them again, but I take comfort in knowing that they want me to move forever someday because it is what is best for me. I relish in every moment I spend with my best friends, but I know we are all capable of more than our hometown and we will all go out and find our true homes and dreams.
A house is not a home, home is something abstract. Home is watching the sky turn purple while you wait for a bus; home is doing laundry with your best friend and laughing for no reason; home is walking down the street at dusk holding your partner's hand while the mosquitoes try to suck you dry; my home will never be your home and your home will belong only to you. This is what I have come to believe and I no longer feel sad when I think of "home."
