The Concept of Home

"Home" is probably one of the most reassuring words in the English language.

It brings to the forefront of your mind a place of total acceptance and stability; a place that you can call your own and that you feel comfortable in.

Home is where a good majority of your memories are formed and it is always reassuring to return back to that same place you had and might still call home.

However, I have come to learn over time that home is not a place as much as it is a feeling. A sense of self, if you will.

I have lived in the same house practically my whole life and have come to associate home with my room doing what teenagers do: sleeping, hanging out with friends, and obsessing over boybands. My home is my backyard where my dogs go out to run around and where my dad spends his summer days gardening. Home is where my mom cooks dinner in the kitchen while I sit in the family room with my sister, watching TV.

Home, I believed, were these little rooms that all together made up our house.

Home, I have come to learn, is not necessarily this one small house in Southern California.

I have found homes all around the world that I never actually realized until just recently.

Being away from home and staying in new places that I may or may not return to has taught me that although no single place has housed me for the vast majority of my life like my actual house back in California, home is wherever I find myself at peace.

In a short amount of time, Glasgow has become my home. I feel so at ease with where I live, my routine, my coffee shops, my friends, our pubs, our favorite shops in city centre (shoutout to Primark), and so much more. I know that when I ultimately leave this city for the United States, my "real" home, I will miss Glasgow with everything in me.

I cannot even begin to think about leaving yet because Glasgow has wedged itself into my heart. I feel that every place I have traveled to recently has snuck its way in there as well.

I have found myself aching to go back to Dublin and Berlin more and more each week. I have fallen in love with cities that are not mine, but I like to think that they are now. I find myself wishing to go back to the hostels I stayed in and visit the cities all over again, just to relive those small moments of home and peace.

It's comforting to know that so many places around the world have become home to me. I know that when I return to Glasgow in the future, even though I won't have a permanent place of residence, I will always feel at home here.

My heart belongs to so many cities and countries and states and I am just beginning to realize that. When I come back to these places (some places that I have yet to discover), I know I will always have a home there, no matter who I am with, where I'm staying, or where I am at in my life.

Home, in essence, is wherever your heart decides to take residence.