Home

What is home? I’ve never really had a good sense of the word. In those annoying surveys you get given by all sources of information-haggling junkies, the box “hometown” remains blank for me. Is home where you are “from?” Is home where your family resides? Is home where your soul feels most at peace with the world? Can home be multiple places and states of being at once? I’ve never really known a home. But maybe, just maybe, I’ve got it a little more figured out lately.

My home is divided, but it is not two homes. Split between coasts and across vast expanses of distance and differences, I am in two places at once. I don’t love one more than the other, though I love them for differing reasons. Home is actually where my heart is (apologies for the cliché). But even though I’m split down the middle, I carry my whole heart with me to either home. I have two hearts that are the same.

Being away from my physical home, away from the proximity of the familiar, the loved, and the known, I have found a new appreciation for what I leave behind each time I get on a plane and jet towards my other, newer, shinier home. My first home is Zen yet chaotic, warm yet refreshing, old yet advanced, and invaded yet safe. It comes with a family, a roof, and a bed to sleep in. It comes with an overflowing abundance of unconditional love.

My second home is three thousand miles west, and a world away. Thinking about it makes my heart skip a beat. It buzzes. It never sleeps. It inspires. It drives. It promises. My second home makes me want to get out of bed each morning. It invites me to dance and dares me to make my next move. My new home is thrilling. In this home, I am in love with an idea, a possibility, and a city.

Home seems to be wherever I am. I make a destination a home simply by being there. I make a place home by adapting, adjusting, and fine-tuning. Home is convoluted. It’s not a one-worded entity. Home is whatever I make of it, and whatever I desire to embody. Home is a choice as much as it is a location. Home is… love.