Christmas is, of course, a wonderful time of year. Thousands of mesmerizing, colorful lights seduce us as we drive past decorated town centers and festive residences. Joy is palpable in the air as we walk among one another and exchange warm wishes in passing. Returning to family members’ abodes for the holidays, too, is special. Their place is usually regarded as comfortable to many people, but I wonder: is it home for all of us?

There was a time when I had one indisputable home. It was the house in which I lived since I was three years old. It was the house in which I played, learned, laughed, cried, grew and matured. Over the course of 14 years, that house became ragged, run-down and old, but it was home nonetheless. It became deeply associated with all of the happy memories I had ever made and all of the people to whom I had ever grown close.

In 2013, I graduated high school and moved to a city two hours north of home with my boyfriend, who I then been with for four years and grown considerably close to. The dorm in which I lived freshman year was a great little space that I shared with a wonderful roommate, but it wasn’t home. Charleston -- the city I had moved to for college -- was growing on me, certainly, but it was still just a home away from home.

I moved out of my dorm and lived for a while with my boyfriend in his apartment. Up to this point, we had suffered many hardships living on our own and learning to take care of ourselves. Strangely, with our collective daily worries and small celebrations in the foreground, home increasingly shifted into the background. Eventually, after moving into our very own apartment together and getting accustomed to the full-blown ins and outs of adulthood, I wasn’t quite sure what, who or where home was anymore. While I was away attending college, my parents divorced, my mom moved into an apartment of her own, my dad let the physical home I had always known crumble around him, my little brother became a man with a car and a full-time job and my older brother became consumed with alcoholism. Everything and everyone I had ever known transformed during my time away and coming back to visit my hometown couldn’t possibly feel the same anymore. The place and set of memories I had treasured for years seemed now to be a closed chapter of my life -- a fleeting montage of my childhood and adolescence. What, then, did that leave me with?

It’s the very end of 2016 and I’m still struggling with this idea. Is home still the old place I eagerly left (and never really returned to) nearly four years ago? Is it my mom’s apartment, the place where I sleep each time I visit my hometown? Is it my apartment in Charleston that I’ve lived in for over two years now? This Christmas -- and for several others in the past -- my boyfriend and I were unable to be together. This time, he went off with our dog to be with his family in Florida and I went with our cat to visit my family, fragmented as it may be these days. The alienated feeling I’ve gradually realized each holiday season reached a fever pitch this year when I became involved in a heated, emotional argument with my two brothers on Christmas Day. It started out as a political argument (of course), but escalated into a barrage of personal insults and somehow ended with sincere concern for my older brother’s failing health. No real conclusion was reached; we were all just left feeling the suspense that remains after an awkward and frustrated falling-out. I spent too much time after that argument crying and wondering what happened to the group of people and the place I once associated with the positive idea of home. The strangest sensation I’ve ever had is being with blood relatives on what is supposed to be a joyful day and being instead conditioned to miss someone who isn’t even family. It was Christmas Day and all I wanted was to drive back to Charleston and be with my boyfriend and dog. This was the first time I had ever been so confident in that odd and startling feeling.

Maybe this is part of becoming an adult: realizing that there will be many physical “homes” that will come and go. Maybe this year’s Christmas episode is life’s way of telling me that it’s now necessary for me to acknowledge that home is where the heart is, and that that doesn't necessarily have to mean my hometown right now. If my heart is with someone who has yet to deeply hurt me, that’s home. Maybe, too, when I’m in an unfamiliar and unwelcoming place many years down the road, I will once again associate my hometown and family with the cozy, happy idea of home. I am certain that those distant people, places and pleasant memories will never be forgotten.