The concept of “home” is something that has always intrigued me. It’s sort of a buzzword that holds a lot of weight for a lot of people. When I moved to college the meaning of “home” became even more vague. Is home where you grew up? Where your parents are? Where you cook dinner and fall asleep every night?
The first time I figured out what home meant to me, I was a senior in high school. I grew up in the smallest, most tightly-knit town you can imagine. I found my home on a snowy Sunday morning, huddled in the arms of all my friends, tears violently streaming down our faces at the thought of leaving one another the following June.
The second time I found my home I was 17 years old, in love, and venturing down the east coast with some of the greatest people I’ve known in my lifetime. People who knew every word to all of my favorite songs, could make me laugh until I cry, and dance under the stars until I fell asleep in the early hours of the morning. Nowhere near where I came from, I was convinced that my home lay within a single human, who could make me feel alive and comfortable all at once.
Going away to college caused my concept of home to do a 180 degree turn. My dorm room, I could never call a home but more of a dwelling to exist in. My house that I came from, but no longer belonged to, both contained undeniable pieces of me. But the statement, “I’m going home,” suddenly changed from what was a 15-minute drive down some winding back roads in my trusty Jeep, to a two-hour bus ride, crammed with commuters and headaches.
This was the most difficult time in my life thus far. My heart was in my hometown, but my body was living in a big city 50 miles away. I spent an entire year chasing that feeling of home that I felt so long ago, but people and situations change like the weather, and I was allowing myself to be left behind.
Recently I began my junior year of college, in a brand new apartment with a brand new outlook. What I’ve learned is that home is not permanent. The house you grew up in is not your home. The town you grew up in, although it will forever hold a huge place in your heart, is not your home. Your home is where you put your passion, and where you find your love.
I can easily admit that my best friend’s address is listed as “home” on my Uber account, and “let’s go home” makes me think of sipping tea on her kitchen counter. I find my home when I’m painting, writing music, or watching a sunrise through the lens of my camera. Although my apartment is beautiful, it isn’t home until my friends are sprawled on the living room floor playing some all-too modern music and screaming along to every word. Home is when I look at Monet’s work and feel everything. Home is when the sky turns gold, and rose, and makes everyone’s eyes sparkle. Home is when I meet someone new and they just get it. Home is in my favorite band’s words. Home is when you step out of the moment you’re in and look at it from above, and just think, “thank you.”
Home can be a person, home can be a place, but for me, home is a feeling. It exists in every tense: past, present and future. Home is within yourself, and it’s always moving forward.
