In my Intro to Anthropology class, I learned that the Inuits have various words for snow. It’s something that they are well acquainted with, so they can tell even the slightest of difference between types like the powdery kind or the compact one. It’s surprising to see that we have words that describe things abstractly, but never have words that are bound to them. For a language as complex as English, one would think that there would be words invented by now that could convey the complexities of human interaction and feelings.

Why is there only one word for love or family or home? In the past year, even in the past few months, I’ve learned that family is not confined to blood relation, but is a bond created between people that you connect with and love. Love, why is there only one word for love? We all love in different ways, when I say “I love you” to my mom or my best friend, it doesn’t mean the same thing as when I say “I love you” to my burrito at Chipotle.

I’ve noticed this recently when my friends and I talk about going home on breaks. While we lounge about at the library or the commons, one would frequently say “I’m going home now.” We understand what they mean, that they’re going back to that 15 by 15, 246 square feet dorm with pictures of their loved ones, with their bed and with their roommate; that’s their home. Home also means the house with their dog, or their fireplace, or where they scraped their knee on the sidewalk when they were eight. That is home too.

I have many homes. If there are books and a corner I could nestle into, then that is home. In high school, the sweaty, middle gym with blue tumbling mats was home. And when it wasn't anymore, the upstairs studio at Louise Noel's became my home, with it's barres and tutus in the corner. Now, I technically have two homes: the beige house in Agawam and Boland Hall at Stonehill. It's funny really how each of them make me appreciate the other one. When I'm at school, I love my friends who are turning into family, but they don't quite compare to good ole Ma and Pa, and Nick too. But at home, I realize the things at Stonehill that I take for granted while I'm there, proximity and freedom. Each one reminds me that both are home but in their own way.

My roommate had texted me after going home one weekend, her mother had gotten a little upset because she had left something “at home.” It wasn’t the fact that she left something here at school, but rather it was the fact that she is nesting in somewhere new. I never really think about how home isn’t always the same place throughout your life. For me, home was never actually my house. When I was younger, I pictured home as the place where my mom, dad and brother were. When we were together that was home. In high school, home was in my friend’s backyard where the fire pit lay; that was my home. It was sometimes the chorus room or even my favorite teachers. They were both home and I was the satellite.

I guess I never really felt rooted to one place due to my childhood. I was born in the Philippines but moved to the U.S. when I was young. What was home then? Up until I was five home was humid, noisy and my cousins teasing me. Then it became unpredictable weather, suburbs and new faces everywhere I looked; home became a feeling. It became somewhere that I knew I could belong to, it wasn’t just places I could pin on a map, although a lot of them are.

As I write this, I am 30, 000 feet in the air and I am homebound. I'm going back to the place that has given me my culture and my sense of unity and a place in this world. If anything, I knew that if I were at a loss for words, I could rely on it to pin point my origin.

I wish we had more words to describe this kind of home, the place that is so familiar yet hazy. I wish there was a word to describe the home I feel when I am at Stonehill, something stronger than community and almost like a family. Is there even a word for when you feel at home in someone’s arms?

Sometimes, I find that there are too many words, sometimes we have too many words that describe things that we don't like and I often find that there aren't enough words to accurately convey how I feel. Maybe someone should make their 2017 resolution: “invent new words for the English language." Perhaps I'll take up that challenge myself. Only time will tell, but one thing for sure is that over the course of the next year wherever I decide to take root, my home will help me sprout.