There is a highway out in the nighttime air that twists and twirls into gravel and dust, pierced with stars gleaming down upon it, and that highway is my home. I know no other road so well, know every turn where you have to take your brights off, every creek and diovted ditch along the side lines, like my veins pumping through my arms, this road pumps adrenaline through our car tires and we are sent speeding into the sky above us, this highway is my home. This highway loops the state I reside in, a state filled to the brim with cornfields, wheat fields, fields and fields, a never ending expanse of a part of my heart, I realize then that this state is my home. The sun sets at my waist, squeezing tight around me the golden light embraces me and I am in love, the sun bathes the land in a golden gleam. Nebraska is known for its sunsets, and god, if you could see this one right now you would understand, you would cry as the light hits your eyelids because in that moment you feel, no, you know God. The sun that sets along the land laces the lane dividers saturating them in a soft yellow, our car’s tire caps reflect the sunlight and I am home.

Where is your home? There is something interesting about the idea of home. Is a house a home? What makes a home? My home is a black corolla on a distant highway, but that doesn’t mean a house can’t be a home. Can people be homes? My home is in the boy driving the car down a dark highway at night, eyes like sparking stars. Can we consider this a home?

Where do you find homes? How do you determine if something is a home? I find home in songs that rock me to sleep or lift me up when the interworking of my mind hold me down. I sing to them as a cry, a knowing that I am real. This neither a place or a person, yet within it I find home.

I find home in the people that created me. They are strong, unmoving, rocks that I can grasp in an ocean of crashing fears. I love my parents more than words can explain. Familial love is home; familial love is warm. There is an indescribable connection, energy, and air about being with the ones you love, your blood family. There is something that will always be there with them, an underlying sense of trust. My parents are the biggest part of my everything.

Home can be people, home can be places, it can be a highway at dusk, it can be your mom’s hug after a long week. Home is a feeling of belonging, or right-ness, or safe. Safe is the most yearned for feeling, because with safe comes life, a pure and calm life, that you can experience with little worry. The things that bring me home give me this feeling. And for that, I am forever grateful.

Take a minute to compile a list of all the things in which you find home. Think about each of them deeply. Thank the universe for giving you them, and no matter where you go, don’t ever forget the places which you feel home.