Home.

Home

[hōm]

Noun:

1. the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household

Adjective:

1. of or relating to the place where one lives

Verb:

1. (of an animal) return by instinct to its territory after leaving it

A word with many meanings, related to feelings and nostalgia, all while meaning something completely different from person to person. How is it that we can all crave something we uniformly use the same word for, but by definition has a totally unique importance in each of our lives?

Even though we all synonymously speak of home, I can say my idea of home isn’t a structure, or even one specific place for that matter, but more of a feeling. There is that old saying, “home is where the heart is”, that I think deserves some real thought, more then just used in cute home decor signs. Where your heart is also has multiple meanings, so with this,  we can begin to peel back the layers…

Where your heart is, in my mind, means where your passion lies, where your true deep desires live, and where you feel truly alive! Most people don’t listen to their heart, and therefor don’t listen or try to explore these passions. In the words of The Alchemist:

…Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you’re thinking about life and about the world.

~Paulo Coelho

Part of life is figuring that out, what makes our heart skip a beat, what draws out our inner fire and sparks our soul alight.. that’s where, I think, we would feel most at home.

The most beautiful thing about words and languages is how they can have so many different meanings, and it lets us explore and mold it to our own ideals and expand or contract the words to the way our mind thinks. It moves to fit and encompass all of our experiences so that as we go along in life, it still holds a significance, all the while bending to the change it holds.

It’s pretty standard for most of us, growing up, home is your actual, physical home,  your noun, your place of residence. The safe, the comfortable, what you know. Then as you get older, its wherever your parents live, or where you are from, where you grew up, maybe even where you live now… but I think there comes a point in our lives where it’s really up to us as an individual to place that important title on something, and define within our own heart and mind what home is to us.  Do we listen to what our heart is telling us, or do we keep it silent, and tell IT what home is?

I was recently shown an article  by Kellie Donelly, about coming home after traveling and how that can be hard and put you in a funk because your mind has been so widened by your new experiences that it becomes hard to then adjust back to ‘normal’.

But what if you were just perceiving that wrong? What if you didn’t have to feel that way?

What if the experiences of coming and going and time chunks of experiences was the normal, that was your reality! From one day to the next, it doesn’t just go away because you are here or there, it’s still part of you now.  If your heart calls to you to explore and take chances and go where you can, and you listen.. then there is no reason to feel the loss, the deficit after. It is part of you now, who you are, it is where your heart is.

For you maybe home is everywhere. Home is the adjective, or the verb, in action.

I have this feeling, that as I go along in life, home is everywhere, or anywhere you decide to make it, because when you are with that special person by your side, it makes anywhere in the world feel like home! To me, its not a place or structure, but a feeling, a togetherness.

You won’t ever have that feeling of ‘coming back’ and the high of your travels being over. We could travel the world together, or set up shop anywhere, and feel that together, we are home. I think this is where I find my true definition –  where I belong.

“Home is not where you are from, it is where you belong. Some of us travel the whole world to find it, others find it in a person.”

~ The Explorers 

There are so many quotes and songs out there, all that try to sum up the feeling of what home feels like, what it is to leave, or go back.

I’ve even embellished my body with the Coldplay song lyrics from Fix you- “The lights will guide you home”. Not only do I think they are one of the most talented artists of our lifetime, but beyond that, the lyrics themselves have so many different meanings, one could interpret in any way you wish…

I’ll just leave this here:

The lights of your house, the lights in someones eyes, the light at the end of the tunnel, the light within you, burning in your soul… will guide you “home”.. to a place, to a person, to a heaven, to a memory, to your true passions…

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