Starting in April
5th, I will no longer have a place of residence. I will be using this time to
travel extensively for work, saving up money for several months worth of rent
for when I return to Washington, and to draw, paint, and reflect on what
matters to me most in my life and how I'll be getting there. I'll be staying
with friends, and traveling across the country...all of which brings me to the
thoughts I've been having the past few days on what the idea of "home"
is to me, and how it shapes how I view the world and the situations I'm cast
into.
Home is something
carried in the heart. It isn’t a physical thing. It isn’t something you can
see, smell, taste, or touch. It isn’t something you can grasp with your hands
only to have it taken away from you. Home is an emotion. It’s something we
grasp with the fibers of our soul, and only we can remove ourselves from that
place. If one truly knows what it is to be, this is something that can be
understood.
Without the meaning
we give it, our lives mean nothing. We fight, we struggle, we die, all for the
sake of survival…because no matter how much we may sometimes feel worthless,
there’s a part of us that knows that we’re worth it, if only to ourselves. This
is my experience at least.
Growing up in
California, I often wished I could find “home” it was something I longed for,
something I wished I could understand. I ran from the place I was expected to
call home, more times than I can count. I found solace in travel, in
continually moving forward. It was something that gave me strength. Maybe
because in wandering aimlessly, I was able to find comfort in my own sense of
home-less-ness.
It took me
losing…..so much throughout my life for me to understand that the only sure
sense of home you can hold onto, is carried within the self. Places can be
taken from you, people can oust you from places where you lay your head, and
territories can be taken by the strongest… but who can take you from yourself
but you? Who can take the beauty of the world from you? Who can take from the
world the beauty in the reflection of a solitary raindrop? Who can take from
you the heavens, with all its wonders?
I have lost nothing.
My heart may hurt from time to time, but the fact that I can feel it at least
means that it still belongs to me. What is life except what we make of it? I
can spend my time worrying, or I can spend my time doing. I know one will get
me somewhere, while the other leaves unanswered questions, and something to be
desired. I know there’s nothing to do but to move forward, and to know that
there are people in my life who I treasure, and who treasure me. I am not
alone, and I have lost nothing.
Soon I begin a new
journey, but in the end I know that I will be stronger and wiser for it, and
that in just a couple of months, this weary heart will be warmed by a loving
embrace once more.
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