You don't know what home really means, until you leave it.

Growing up, I only moved once, and it was across the street. I spent 17 years in the same town, hanging out with the same people, and ordering the same things at restaurants. I had a routine and it worked for me.

I had never spent much time pondering what "home" really meant to me. To me, home was just, home. It was the only place I had ever known, and I never second guessed it.

Moving from Oregon to California changed my understanding of home, forever.

At first, just like everyone else, I found the move exciting. I was in a new world, with more malls, Mercedes, and mouse ears. Soon however, the excitement wore off. I didn't like not knowing the streets, people, and lifestyle. Everything was suddenly so big and so loud and so so so California.

Home became a place of wrong turns, traffic, and no safe place. It wasn't the soft and warm home I was used to. This home had a bite. I was afraid, and worst of all, felt homeless.

I missed my warm bed back home. All i wanted was to see the same people I used to and live the life I knew. I did not want to start over, because I was comfortable where I had been. But then I realized that I had to start over, or risk being homeless forever.

A new home soon began to emerge, brick by brick. I started by making my cramped dorm room feel like home, putting up posters I had back home, pictures of friends and family, and leaving room for new memories. Then I worked on my friendships and realized that I needed to open myself up to the people around me. Finally, I took to time to explore. I drove the city at night, ate at new ice cream shops, and wandered streets I'd never seen.

Slowly but surely, I made California a new home for myself.

Moving out of my home town and into a new city, showed me that home is not a two story house in the suburbs, a tight clique, and buttered noodles. Home is more than any one place or thing.

Home is a newly memorized zip-codes, lofted beds, and micro-fridges. It's city lights, and an extra hour of traffic. It's learning new backstories, new views, and a new perspective.

Home is familiarity. It's mountains, rivers, and trees stretching into the horizon. It's spring allergies, waterfalls at the end of a trail, and ice cream to end the day. It's midnight runs to Sharis, cops and robbers, and 18 years of memories both good and bad.

Home is everyone I love. It's honey shampoo, driving the gorge, and swishers on a bench. It's "friends" and friends. It's life chats, open back trucks, that one song, sitting around the dinner table, and a dazzling view of the milky way.

When I first moved, I doubted I could find a suitable home here, in California. Six months later, I find myself in love with two different places. I no longer feel homeless, I feel right at home, wherever I am.