As the saying goes, "Home is where the heart is." But what happens when you consider more than one place your home? It has been three years since I packed up my car, pointed it toward Ohio and left behind the town I grew up in.
I will always call Indiana my home. It's where I grew up. My family still lives there. It's where I learned to ride a bike, where I learned to love, where I learned to drive, and where I learned about friendship. I left Indiana to follow my boyfriend to college. I did the crazy thing everyone tells you not to do because I wanted our relationship to succeed.
Strange emotions come back to me when I go to visit my hometown. While I am away buildings get torn down, buildings get built, roads change, friends move across the country, and the things that I remember about the place vanish. Despite all of this, Ohio becomes homier every day. I've learned my way around town, I can travel between cities using back roads instead of the interstate and little shops have become my usual stops. But the physical things don't make a place a home.
I think what makes someplace 'home' is the feeling you get when you arrive. The people that fill the space, fill the occasion, that makes a place a home. Indiana will always be a home to me because my family still lives there. Ohio is my home because of my husband and his family. That feeling is what causes us to think, "Yep, this is where I am meant to be."
