Today I was smoking a cigarette outside of the apartment complex I currently live in, I always find myself looking about aimlessly while doing so. My eyes caught the people who live across the way's door mat, which happened to read "There is no place like home". I shook my head because, when do you determine what is home? Here I am, about 700 miles from home, wondering to myself what constitutes a home? I would say without question, my home is in Michigan....however even when I think about that I feel confused, because how is Michigan my home when even my house there isn't mine. Then I ponder maybe my parent's house is home, wrong again; its no more my home than any of the other places I have stayed. So whats the answer? I think it is an open ended question, open to interpretation, open to debate, and open to whatever you really believe a home is. Maybe its 4 walls carefully molded together to protect the home maker. I know lately it feels like everywhere could be my home if I allow it to be, by this I mean just because a place is all you know and all you feel comfortable in; doesn't make it "home". So when people say home is where the heart is, my heart is in my body and wherever my body wanders...well anywhere should be home in that scenario!
I think Andrew Largeman got it best: You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore all of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone.
I have no idea why, but I feel the same way he does, I have no idea where home is, nor any idea where I will plant my feet, a month from now. Let alone where I would call home. I guess I am my own home, I make up my own home "sweet" home.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Shelby Kirchoff
You brought up how "home is where the heart is", but your heart and your body and mind move all over, so that everywhere, in that sense, should be home. This could be possible, also true, for many people. Maybe, a person could find extreme happiness in having the world as a home; it's such a struggle as a child growing up and you don't seem to fit in anywhere, and then as an adolescent you shape yourself around where you want to fit in, so that you can belong and become and be whoever you want to be.
ReplyDeleteI think that if a person could truly accept the earth as their home, their place of happiness, that person would be a whole lot less burdened. Not just the land, the planet, you know, but the world as a whole, with its people and nature and technology and roots and crazy cultures. Humans have a natural tendency to want to blend, to want to belong, so if "home is where the heart is", give your heart to the world so that you may always have a home to return to when life throws you into turmoil.