HOME. Four letters that pack a lot of meaning. How do we as society define it? How do you personally define it? Is it a person, a place, maybe a memory or even a feeling you get deep inside yourself? Society defines home quite rigidly as a, "the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or a household".
When I think about home, home is defined as everything except this rigid societal definition. Home is a place where your loved ones live, where your favorite spots located and where the best memories are made. Home to me is Austin, Texas. That liberal blueberry in a sea of conservative strawberries, a hipster paradise surrounded by cowboys, and most well known the Live Music Capital of the World. Austin is the place I was fortunate enough to grow up in. The singular place that I would say made me who I am.
Austin is where I made my friends, found my favorite places, and made some lifetime memories. Certain things stick out in my mind as being home. It isn't a trip home without stops at certain places, going to see my friends or reminiscing over memories at these places with these friends.
It gives me butterflies every time I'm standing on the Lou Neff bridge halfway through a run looking out over the city skyline. If you've never seen an Austin skyline early in the morning it's a can't miss. The sun shining down on me on the big grassy hill at Barton Springs makes me smile like no other. My friends and I could spend hours there in a vicious cycle of jumping in the 68 degree waters then laying out in the 100 degree sun, laughing and talking about who knows what the whole time.
Pure joy is eating Kerbey Lane queso and pancakes at 2am alongside your best friends because why not take advantage of the best 24hr restaurant in town. Besides Magnolia Cafe of course, they tie for first place to me. Or dancing around the Broken Spoke on the weekends laughing hysterically at one another's dance moves. Only hoping you can one day be as cute as the resident two steppers.
Finally I love the feeling of pulling up in front of my house after not having been home for a while where I already feel embraced with a love like no other, my family's, Our house is bursting at the seems with 12 plus years of memories and moments, that being home with my family in our own white house puts the biggest grin on my face.
Whether you define home simply as the house on the street you grew up in, your childhood friends, places in your hometown or anything else, home is what you make of it. It is truly more than just a place you can point at on a map. It is the place that every emotion in you tells you that is home. I was born in Mesa, Arizona, but Austin, Texas will always be the home I head back to when I stray far away.
