Home

 

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.