Where is home, exactly? Is it where you were born? What if you were a military brat and you only lived where you were born until you were 6 months old-? I can't think there would be some emotional attachment to that place, since you likely will not remember it. What about that little transitional apartment after overseas? Living there for 3 or 4 years, you probably remember it to some degree. Is that home? There was that little house you may have lived in, your siblings were born there, you had friends outside to play with, Grandma was just down the road.... that sounds like home. However, like many people- we move on. And before you know it you're states away from Grandma on a new street with new friends, is that home? I kinda thought it was, until I left again and lived in another state. In that state, I left my family behind and lived with my best friends. It felt like home. We lived and struggled and survived and came "home" every night to do it again the next day. When a room opened up in my house in there, I placed an ad on roommates.com and several people responded. When they moved into my house, over time, it became their home. And then over more time, one of those roommates and I fell in love and wanted to create our own home- and we did. In another small transitional apartment until life took us cross-country for my husband's new duty station. And for a long time, when I thought about going "back home", I thought of somewhere in particular. Back to the house on the street with friends I played with. I was obsessed with this notion of going home, to the point that after my husband exited the service and we could settle anywhere, my knee-jerk reaction was to want to go "back home". But, if we take a moment to think on this, my "back home" wasn't the same as my husband's "back home". Together, we'd created many versions of home over the years. And frankly, the home I was glorifying wasn't the happiest of places to be, and at my first opportunity I ran away from it. I wanted home, but I was making a classic mistake in thinking that home is an actual physical place. No, friends, no. Home isn't physical. It's a state of being. Being home is where you are safe. Being home is where you are most vulnerable. Home is our place to reside, yes, but you can do that in a cardboard box- there's a reason we do what we do with our homes. Tiny example: When I was growing up, I was primarily growing up in another man's (he ended up becoming my step-dad) house. I'd go to my friend's houses and see all of their family portraits and we never had that. There was one picture frame for each of us in the hallway and my mother rotated them out each school year. That is it. There were photographic images on the walls, art- but nothing warm and fuzzy. So, if you walked into my house now, you might be overwhelmed with pictures! Anywhere I can rightly display a picture of my babies or our family pics- I'm game. All of the moments of their lives spread throughout the rooms like scattered memories. There is art, but it's sparse. I have a room full of their crafts from Kindergarten up... you can see what I'm getting at here; it bothered me that we didn't feel valued and celebrated when we were kids, so I made sure that wasn't the case with my kids. Part of home for me, means all the memories of the ones I love. Home for my mom, at that point in her life meant a roof and place to survive. But I had to learn this. And I had to build on the concept. I knew I was highly adaptable, that was evidenced by the many places I'd lived. But I'd only been happy a couple of these places. Of course at the time I would blame it on depression or anxiety, but now, I know I wasn't addressing my core needs. Everyone needs their home to include certain things. In my childhood home where I lived with a step-parent, I never felt valued or seen. In my earliest places of residence after moving out, I never felt at home. Finally, I moved to Hawaii- made it mine, and it was home. That included natural light, windows open, photos of family and friends all over, genuine laughter, comfort and sense of ease. It's something that can't be faked. You can't throw a person in a room and say, "you're home!"... it just doesn't work like that. So something I hear pretty frequently is that "I don't feel at home here" or, expressing the inability relax and and sleep or feel at peace. The place you exist isn't "home" just because you have told your logical brain that it is. Your emotional brain, basically just says: Prove it. And until you do, it'll not feel like home. So what to do? Ask yourself what are you favorite things about "home"? That place can be totally imaginary or you can be thinking of somewhere specific. An example: Home to me feels bright and light and airy. I want to know my old dolls have a space in the attic and my old books are being shared with my kids. Logically I know this is because my homes as a child were dark, and unfriendly feeling. As a result, all of my curtains are sheer. All of my windows have screens and blinds so I can let in air and light as I desire. If you're living in a dark room with no windows, and you're not celebrating your personality in some way, your life and adventures; if you don't look around and see joy in each crevice and crack in your walls, then you're not home. And the only way to change that, is either to bring yourself into that room- by opening the windows and letting in the air, by infusing your "home" standards, or going to a place where they already exist. Put up your photos, plant some flowers, throw your favorite blanket on the couch. And if you're walking into a place with art and photography on the walls, it might look pretty, but it won't feel like home. You know why? Those images aren't from your heart or life. They don't spark the joy of the experience, they are effectively meaningless. The walls are your canvas to make your space home. They need your touch, your spark. Your sweet soul will not be at peace until it resides in a place where it is celebrated. Home is where your heart is and your heart resides in the things you collected both physical and emotional over the years. Home can be anywhere, yes, anywhere! But it must be a celebration of your life.
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