What Does "Home" Mean, to You?

I'm going home!

There was a time in my life when I would feel a stab of sadness when I heard someone say those words. I felt that way — I suppose — because I didn't really know what "home" meant, at the time.

View from one of the hidden paths by my Auntie's summerhouse in Denmark

As I've shared from time to time, we traveled and moved a lot during my first 18 years of life, so it would be easy to say that "home" was a constantly moving target.

When I would say things like "Oh, we're heading home" it would actually be a sort of generic statement about us going from wherever we were living at the time, back to Denmark.

I learned — at a very early age — the "home" wasn't just about a place, it was about a feeling and a sense of belonging.

It's not something you develop readily, when you're constantly moving!

I look back across the years and I feel like all those places we went were little more than "parking spots." Sure, they were places to rest our heads and explore something new, but they were not not "home."

Even our house in Denmark didn't really feel all that much like home, even though I would call it that, for lack of a better description.

I lived in Spain for seven years, but it never felt like home, to me. Ironically, when I told people in Spain that I was headed back to Denmark for a visit to family, I would tell them I was "going home." And when I was getting ready to leave Denmark to return to Spain, I would tell my family and friends there that I was "going home."

I left Spain and came to the USA for University when I was 20. I was looking for something, although I am not entirely sure what it was.

I didn't find it, mind you.

I actually spent 20 years living in Texas, in and around Austin. Even so, it never really felt like home. But, while there, I increasingly closed in on the fact that home is really more of a feeling than it is a place.

And maybe — just maybe — it's a feeling combined with a person. Or the way you feel around a certain person. But it's also an energy. Texas never "felt" like home, because the air was the wrong color, and the plants were "wrong" and the landscape was wrong... it's hard to explain.

After my mother died, I returned to the part of Spain where I had spent my teenage years, to close her place down and finish off her affairs.

I drove around, visiting some of the places where I'd spent so many of my formative years, expecting to... to... feel something. A familiarity. An undefinable sense of belonging, somehow.

Instead, I found pretty much nothing. Weeks later I was sitting on a park bench here in town, and I realized that part of the issue was that those places were still the same as they'd ever been, but the person visiting them was different. That 16-year old boy, and all the feelings that went with him had long since dissipated into the air, like morning mists before the sun.

Where I live today is as close to feeling like "home" as any place I have lived. I some strange way, it feels like an aggregation of all the good bits of places I've lived and visited.

There's ocean, and mountains, and snow, and sun, and the trees look right and the light is the right color and when I breathe in the air I feel full. Or filled.

The "Power of Place" can be a powerful thing, but it will only get you so far. At some point you have to stop and decide that you've arrived somewhere, and it's good in a way where it doesn't feel like putting down roots will hurt you, or kill you, or disappoint you.

Just feeling peaceful inside, is a good starting point. When the place makes you feel peaceful... you can turly "unpack" the person, as well... bring out the parts that have been stowed away in your personal "suitcase," and allow them to see and enjoy the sun.

I realize this ramble is a bit of a departure from much of what I write about... but it is also a return. A return to the roots of what my writing was always about: Exploring the roots of the human experience.

It's home, in its own way.

Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about you? What does HOME mean, to you? Is it a place? Is it a feeling? Is it a person, or a family? Is it a sense of belonging? What is YOUR impression? Is there any place you truly feel HOME? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.03.05 00:14 PST
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