had you asked me 3 or 4 years ago where home was, my instinctive thought would've been my parents house, the house I grew up in, in a little neighborhood. I would've thought about the kitchen with those light fixtures, the backyard with the apple trees, and my room with the flower stickers I plastered all over the walls when I was seven, and the signed taylor swift poster I got when I was eight.
but then I went to college, and I moved halfway across the country, to live in a dorm room with girls I had never met before, decorated with things I got from target the week before. My dorm didn't feel like my room. I put up posters and lights and plants and it just felt wrong. It might have been that everything was shut down, online, and I was stuck in that room all of the time, but it didn't feel like a place I could relax in. It felt like a place I was stuck in, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. my only escape was online. had you asked me then, I would've told you how much I missed home, and would've described the layout of the kitchen, the organization of all of the different dishes, the oven, the fridge, the things that I really missed.
That summer I barely visited my old home, I got a job at a summer camp, and taught kids archery. The weekends I did stay with my parents, I felt like I didn't belong. I slept on a couch in the basement. My little sister had moved into my room.
The flowers were gone. Peeled off and painted over. A little bit of residue remained, as well as the window facing towards the west. My sister complained about the way the light shines through that window when the sun is setting, directly hitting the desk. I missed that. had you asked me that summer, home would not have changed.
The next year got a little better, moved into a different dorm, with people I knew. I spent more time in the library than in my room, and started to make friends. It was weird, but I felt like I belonged at my college. I started to branch out more and try new things.
The next summer I was a camp counselor again. I wasn't avoiding living with my parents, per say, and the job was a mess, but I enjoyed it. Sometimes. Othertimes I felt stuck. I was 16 again, and working the only job I had ever known. I was never going to get anywhere in life, never felt like I could succeed. I started to hate myself. the friends I had made in previous years hadn't returned, moved in to bigger and better things, and i was still there. stuck. it didn't feel like home.
And then it was fall and classes started and I flew back across the country. Junior year of college. I shared an apartment, a variety of baked goods and puzzles with a good friend of mine. I also frequently had my boyfriend over. Had you asked me that year, that apartment, with the shitty microwave and my mildly functional nintendo switch, would have been home. Finally I was in a place, where i felt like I was me.
That summer, I moved back into my parent's house. It was the first time in three years that I had spent more than a couple weeks there. It was nearly three months. and I was miserable. I didn't feel like I wa at home, I didn't feel like myself. I felt like I was playing pretend, acting like I used to be. I'd numbly go with my parents to church each weekend, and disassociate for an hour while they prayed. My mom was nice, and I missed my siblings but I quickly fell into a depressive state. I was working a job in the field I love, succeeding in my career, and yet I had never felt like more of a wreck. the two hour bus commute every day made me wish I had rented an apartment and hadn't saved the money. The lack of a car made me feel more stuck than ever. I didn't know anything and I couldn't do anything right.
It was impossible to explain why I felt homesick, when I was with my family, but I was missing people, not a place.
My head was all over the place. My focus was bad, my headaches were worse, and the occasional passing out and migraines were concerning at best and indicative of something bigger at worst. And then, when it was almost all over, i hit my head again.
This year, my friend and I got an apartment in the same building. Functional microwave, questionable oven. it doesn't feel like home, not in the way the other one did. Maybe it's because I spend less time here. Maybe it's because when I hang out with friends, I do it outside. Maybe it's because when I hang out with my boyfriend, we're always at his house, which feels like more of a home than my place does, even though I have my posters up and everything.
I think it's because I've been too focused on home as a location. The feeling of home, I've realized, to me, has nothing to do with location. Surrounding myself with familiar things can be comforting, but it doesn't make a place home. Home isn't the house I grew up in, it's not existing with my family. The feeling of home can be found anywhere, and its in the people you surround yourself with. I've made friends, and hanging out with them, getting dinner and cracking dumb jokes is the most at home I've ever felt. The feeling of home is the feeling of belonging, that's what i've been chasing all these years.
