“Home wasn’t a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.” — Sarah Dessin
The feeling of being home is one of walking through doors into a place where you feel loved in your entirety, accepted, heard, whole. It is a safety net which acts as a shelter from the world and all of its horrors.
As such, a house cannot simply be a home. You can fill it with intricate paintings, expensive furniture, anything that takes up space in a previously empty room, and yet it will never be the home that you so desire. These items that we talk about in our houses are not things that make you feel at peace, or cozy and warm, or loved. These are just things which solely serve the purpose of taking up room.
These material goods will never replace the feeling of your mother bringing you a warm cup of tea. The feeling of sitting in front of the fireplace, next to someone you love, their voice putting you at ease as they read to you. This house of yours, filled with worldly possessions, it will not be a place where it feels like home. Where it feels safe. Where you feel loved. Where you are taken care of and seen and heard. That is because to make a home, it does not take a house.
It feels as though as I grow older, the more I realize I have never had a place to call home. Nor do I believe I am close to having one. I long for a place to come home to as one longs rain after a drought—for the feeling of going to a place after the sun falls to rest, a place where I can be… at home. Where the rest of the world does not matter because you know that at the end of a long day, where nothing brings you peace, you are coming back to a place that puts your mind at ease. That is home.
Home is not a thing, it is not a place, it is a feeling.These feelings require a strong foundation, constant construction. And this is part of the reason why a lot of us can’t feel at home in our “homes.” It isn’t the homes themselves—it’s the lack of care to build upon a relationship that you have known your entire life, the lack of place to feel accepted regardless of how you orient yourself on this ever-changing earth.
The great author Maya Angelou wrote “The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” I’ve come to terms with the fact that we all need a home. Some of us start with one and lose it along the way, but some of us never have one to begin with. Some of us may spend our entire lives looking for a place to call home, a person that makes us feel as if we are at home, grasping at any feeling of acceptance and graciousness and love, only for those who said they would stay to release their hold on our hand, sending us plummeting into the darkness of elsewhere.
To find a home is not simple. To build a home is not a task so easily completed. So few of us are blessed enough to be born into a home that comprises all of the traits that we need in order to feel nurtured, to feel secure with ourselves and around others.
I thought I found my home in a person. It was an unmistakable feeling, an instant connection. Like lightning, I was shocked by how immediately vulnerable I was. How open I was, how at ease I felt. Being held, steadied by someone who could be so kind, so gentle, I thought I was home. I thought they were my home.
But people change. People do not stay rooted to the ground, as a house does. The feeling of “home” turned into pain, heartbreak, sending an ache into every one of my thoughts, every action I did. I sought the feeling of home, I held onto the idea that they were my home, but the feelings of home were not there.
That’s when I recognized that home is not a tangible thing. Home is blend of emotion. “Home is not a place but an irrevocable condition,” is what James Baldwin wrote. And that irrevocable condition stems from the realization that the one thing that truly makes your home yours, is you, your feelings, yourself. You as a person are the main thing that makes your home a home—when you step inside a place, or a person’s life, with all those feelings, all those memories, all the liveliness you bring, the warmth—the place is no longer a barren house built with brick or wood…it is a home. A home that you have found or built, a home that is your own. Where you are safe and comfortable. You are home there.
Sometimes people feel like home. Sometimes it’s a place where we don’t live. We’re all constantly looking for what our home is. Your home is built on non-tangible material; memories, tightness of hugs, the aroma of cookies baking in the oven, the warmth of a fire place, the feelings that run rampant, bombarding you as you step through the threshold. Home is in your heart.
We all deserve the feelings of home. When you find your home—don’t let it go.
