Home
(This article was originally published in January of 2018)
“There’s no place like home.” - Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz
Home.
What is “home”?
I, like many others, didn’t grow up in just one house. I’ve belonged to many homes over the years. And, I’ve felt “at home” in many other spaces as well: a small suburban house with cracks in the wall and spiders everywhere, my grandmother’s airy kitchen, self-made backyard forts of pilfered wood, musty college dorm rooms, hip mid-town apartments, a smattering of woodland cabins whilst backpacking, even a tiny conversion van in Iceland...
The list goes on.
But…where’s the real "home"? Or, more importantly, what is “home”?
Some answers to these questions might be:
“Home is where the heart is.”
”Home isn’t a place, it’s a feeling.”
”Houses get bought and sold, but home stays with you always.”
Bella DePaulo of Psych Central affirms that home is a “place, a space, a feeling, a set of practices, or an active state of being in the world.” And, each one of us obviously has a similar, yet subjectively different, concept of home.
In studying the concept of home, and thinking about all its nuanced meanings, I've found that "home," stripped of all abstraction, must be composed of four intangible elements:
Comfort
Safety
Belonging
Love
These four in combination create a rich base from which we can grow, thrive, and reach our full potentials.
In order to become actualized, complete people, a home should provide order and stability, freedom from fear, and protection from negative emotional and physical elements.
A home should be a place where we fit in, a space where we can trust ourselves and others, a place where we belong, a space where we are loved. A place where we are treated with dignity and respect.
Home is where we deserve all the best things, even on our worst days.
Home is an aspect of our personal identity.
Since personal identity is a story that we put together throughout our lives, where we choose to live shapes part of that story. By changing our location or surrounding ourselves with different objects and people, we are altering our sense of home, and modifying our personal narratives. Once we change our story, it is very hard to mentally and physically return to reside in a previous edition.
Here’s an exercise —
Write down every single place you’ve ever “lived,” even for a short time. Also, consider the places where you’ve felt “at home.”
Scan your list, contemplate each item, and think about the following:
How did you feel about yourself in these places?
How have these places shaped you as you’ve grown?
How have these experiences impacted your life?
My list:
Suburban Chicago (several locations)
San Diego (multiple different apartments)
Various log cabins in northern Minnesota
One dusty East Hollywood apartment
London (two distinct flats in two distinct boroughs)
Apartment in Boston, MA
Various hostels in New Zealand
My grandma's house in suburban San Francisco
A convertible van in Iceland
Llama farm in Loveland, CO
House in Fort Collins, CO
Every place and space I’ve occupied over the course of my awareness has been my home, and my experiences in those places and spaces make up who I am.
Experiencing that unmistakable home-like feeling in San Diego, CA 2017
Often times I am wistful for one of these places, longing for those people with whom I spent time, the comforts I felt, or those experiences I’ve had. However, I would find it very hard to reside in any of those places I once called home. My story has changed over time, and my identity has become more solidified. I wouldn’t feel comfortable living in one of my past places since I myself am completely different, while those bygone homes, experiences, and people I once knew stay the same in my mind.
“Every place and space I’ve occupied over the course of my awareness has been my home, and my experiences in those places and spaces make up who I am.”
When I visit a place I used to live, I am initially enthralled, but many times this excitement morphs into anxiety. This is due to the fact that visual cues from these past environments trigger nostalgia, and I am overpowered by past experiences. These memories, while lovely, can be detrimental.
I worry these powerful recollections might cause me to return to the person I was when I lived there. A person not fully formed. A person still searching for her truth. It’s also strange and unsettling to encounter myself in these spaces, as they’ve stayed the same in my mind, yet have changed over time.
Can you relate to this?
This anxiety happens every time I visit the house where I spent my teenage years.
Every other Thanksgiving or Christmas, and a smattering of other occasions throughout a year, I visit a former home in suburban Chicago. Though this was not the house I grew up in — my family moved there when I was 16 — it is a beautiful, bright house on a quiet, meandering street. It is surrounded by flourishing trees and foliage; the backyard is home to plentiful wildflowers, bunnies, birds of all kinds, and the occasional fox. The house is also large enough to host our family during the holidays.
Not quite at home. (Austin, TX, 2014)
In a sense, when I visit this house, I am returning home. But, in this place, I never really approach that soul-serving feeling of being at home.
When I lived between those walls, my family was in tumult. My parents were nearing the end of their marriage. While facing an inevitable dissolution, our household went through every stage of emotional chaos you could think of, making the energy inside very toxic.
In this house, I didn't feel comfortable or safe; I doubted I belonged there. I believed the love I received was conditional upon making my bed, coming home before curfew, or getting straight A’s. So, I stuck to my room most of the time, listening for clues as to the mood, purpose, and whereabouts of each family member. My experiences there were emotionally scarring for me. By suffering through it, I developed a moderate anxiety disorder, highlighted by disordered eating and panic attacks, the latter of which I still sometimes experience in my adult life. It was no surprise that I chose to attend college on the other side of the country - in San Diego. I moved there in 2001 with no regrets or homesickness whatsoever.
Fractured homes tear at their occupants. Abandoned building, Detroit 2014
However, upon returning during college breaks, the atmosphere was even worse. It was almost as if the house was the epicenter of an emotional tornado, ripping and tearing at its occupants, testing them, pitting them against each other, reducing them to raw, primal beings.
20 years have passed since that time, and the atmosphere of this house is different now. My mother is its sole occupant; and, for the most part, the the toxicity has dissipated. A sense of calm has pieced old wounds back together again. But some of the residual tumult remains. Sometimes, tiny smoldering embers are fanned back to life after I cross the threshold. For this unfortunate reason, I rarely feel comfortable here, in what my family universally calls home.
It must be incredibly disappointing to come to terms with the fact that the house you created isn’t a comfortable, safe place where your family feels they belong, where they are loved.
From observing my parent's attempts, I know that creating and cultivating a comfortable, safe, and loving home is a very difficult task. Building an ideal environment where all occupants can thrive might even be an impossible task, but it is an essential task.
The mission to create an ideal home environment has recently taken on extreme importance to my husband Josh and I: we are expecting the birth of our first child in May (!!!). We have no idea what to expect in bringing a new life into this world, but we do know it is the most important job we will ever have.
In anticipation, we have made a few vows regarding the space where our family will grow and thrive:
Our home will be a place where our future children feel comfortable. A place where they feel like they belong; a place where they feel emotionally and physically safe, where they are loved and treated with dignity and respect. A place where our family can find order in the midst of a chaotic world.
Home isn't about the house, the yard, or the town. Home is what all occupants build together, a shared journey of love and belongingness. Home is the collective effort to honor every family member. Home is the mutual promise of safety and comfort.
Home is where the heart is, but it is also where the heart thrives.
Home isn’t a set house, or a single town on a map. It is wherever the people who love you are, whenever you are 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.
- adapted from a quote by Sarah Dessen, from What Happened to Goodbye