found this draft written on July 1, 2013, and thought it still feels relevant. better posting it later than never?
re-reading this 9 years down the road, i have called so many more places home since that i don't know that i have a singular Home. i suppose that's why the adage "Home is where the heart is" still rings true for so many. i also recognize more now when a place has become Home, although it still takes a trip away and coming back to the comforts of my known environment and bed for me to savor the feeling of being in a place i can call home. maybe leaving and losing that feeling of Home so many times has taught me at this point in life to recognize it sooner?
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how do you know when a place has become Home (with a capital H)?
in all the corners of the world where one might discover herself, what sets one nook apart from the other? is it measured by time? depth of immersion? number of relationships?
i think we all grow up with this concept of Home. for most people, Home is where they have grown up, where their parents live, or where their hometown is. Home
Home is that place where you always come back to, where you are always hating and loving and the same time, itching to leave but longing to return.
but Home is also moments frozen in time.
if you venture outside of the confines of your house, you discover a whole new world, and when you travel - be it to sleepaway camp, university, another country - you start experiencing new feelings that are nostalgic and meeting new people that feel like old friends, who become your brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, and the streets that you walk over and over again to the point where you could walk blindfolded from the local favorite nightspot back home -- but you don't really think about it. you don't consider it, or recognize it, or know that that kind of familiarity is indicative of a great significance.
you know a place has become Home only after you're gone. once you are no longer there, something twists inside your heart every time you see something that invariably reminds you of Home. odds are, there will be many more reminders than less. this is how you recognize what Home has become.
you know a place has become Home when your next new home feels strange, alien, and even though it is beautiful, it is excruciatingly difficult to open up your heart again, to try to share it when it has already been given away to someplace else.
you know a place has become home when you are desperate to see those who have become your family, even as you try to build a new community around yourself. you meet lots of people, but very few really, and something feels hollow, and you constantly compare and think back to the family you've left behind, even if they are no longer there themselves. you hungrily scan through Facebook photos as if by seeing their faces they will be closer to you once more the way they were when you were cooking dinner together less than one week ago.
you know a place has become Home only after you have left.
in all the corners of the world where one might discover herself, what sets one nook apart from the other? is it measured by time? depth of immersion? number of relationships?
i think we all grow up with this concept of Home. for most people, Home is where they have grown up, where their parents live, or where their hometown is. Home
Home is that place where you always come back to, where you are always hating and loving and the same time, itching to leave but longing to return.
but Home is also moments frozen in time.
if you venture outside of the confines of your house, you discover a whole new world, and when you travel - be it to sleepaway camp, university, another country - you start experiencing new feelings that are nostalgic and meeting new people that feel like old friends, who become your brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers, and the streets that you walk over and over again to the point where you could walk blindfolded from the local favorite nightspot back home -- but you don't really think about it. you don't consider it, or recognize it, or know that that kind of familiarity is indicative of a great significance.
you know a place has become Home only after you're gone. once you are no longer there, something twists inside your heart every time you see something that invariably reminds you of Home. odds are, there will be many more reminders than less. this is how you recognize what Home has become.
you know a place has become Home when your next new home feels strange, alien, and even though it is beautiful, it is excruciatingly difficult to open up your heart again, to try to share it when it has already been given away to someplace else.
you know a place has become home when you are desperate to see those who have become your family, even as you try to build a new community around yourself. you meet lots of people, but very few really, and something feels hollow, and you constantly compare and think back to the family you've left behind, even if they are no longer there themselves. you hungrily scan through Facebook photos as if by seeing their faces they will be closer to you once more the way they were when you were cooking dinner together less than one week ago.
you know a place has become Home only after you have left.
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