If Home Is Where the Heart Is, Where Is Your Heart?
I do not have any one place I call home
How do you feel when you walk into your home returning from a week-long trip?
Can you describe that feeling in detail?
It’s been two years that I’ve lived in this new structure I call my home. I have a long list of projects that I want to complete in several rooms and hallways of our house — starting with my bedroom which still looks and feels nothing like I dream it to be.
Recently I returned from a very long trip away from home. I was surprised to recognize the smell of my home as I walked in. I passed through the kitchen and threw myself on the living room couch.
“It’s good to be home.”
It felt inviting and cozy. I’ve wanted to feel this way about my new home — and I finally felt it for the first time.
Where is “home” to you?
In the span of a day, I speak to loved ones located in different parts of the world. My heart was divided yesterday as I reflected upon, “Do I truly feel this place to be my home?”
“Where is home to me?”
I left the country I was born and raised in, Venezuela, at the tender age of eighteen to study abroad in the United States of America. At that time and easily for fifteen years afterward, I would longingly share, “I wish I could visit home — Venezuela!”
My parents and fond childhood memories resided there.
Time passed and I changed
For the years I’ve lived in the US, I relocated every four to seven years (give or take). The metamorphosis began.
I can vividly recall an argument I had as a newlywed with my love, when I emphatically stated, “I cannot be moving all the time! I want and need to stay in one place to dig some roots!”
I associated the permanence of living in one place with stability and happiness and ultimately — having a home.
I married a young man who had lived in seven countries by the time he was twenty-five years old and had absolutely no qualms about getting up and moving his residency at the drop of a hat.
I balked at the idea of moving and then kicked a little when I knew I had to find a new job and meet new friends. The busyness of being a young mother kept the momentum going though.
During Christmas, my childhood roots call me — home. However, a new reality is emerging as I listen and speak with the few family members who presently live in Venezuela. I don’t recognize any aspect of their reality.
If I were to fly to Venezuela today, walk the streets, and visit my hometown — could I utter the words, “This feels like home!”?
I now doubt it.
Do any of the six cities — where I lived in the United States — hold a unique place over all others that feel like home?
Not really. They are all so different and some are a little more special than others — but not a singular one stands out.
As I reflect upon the place I associate with home, I couldn’t help but wonder what my children and family defined as a physical location of their “home.”
I headed over to my phone and started surveying family and friends. The only parameter I asked was that they share the geographical location of where “home” was for them — whatever “home” meant to them.
Responses from those closest to me
I smiled as I read their responses, many surprised me — I fell in love with the stories of who they are and what they love.
My eldest son shared, “Well, I would say Pittsburg now because I’m going on five years of being here, but I still very much feel at home in Monterrey, even if it’s somewhat foreign and a new country to me.”
My father, “Trinidad & Tobago…we Trinees are one.” How could you not love that answer?!
My mother, “Las Morochas (Venezuela) — it’s where I’ve lived the most years, having had most life experiences….”
In case you’re wondering, they’ve been married for over fifty years now and both were born in Trinidad.
My sister, “Here in Texas where my husband and children are.”
A childhood friend (like me) born and raised in Venezuela, “It’s been New York even when I didn’t live here. I think I was ten when I first came, and it felt like the city was saying, ‘Welcome home.’ Something about the energy of the city and the way everyone is in their own bubble felt very freeing. Like I could just be me.”
My brother-in-law shared another town stating “…it represents my refuge. Furthermore, it represents my college youth and most importantly it’s where I met my wife.”
My husband, “Nigeria, it’s where I have the greatest sentimental value growing up and that is where my parents, siblings, and family all reside.”
My other two sons picked our last home outside of Philly before we left the US.
A high school friend who has lived in Boston most of her life now still feels Venezuela is her home.
My nephew took the imaginative route and said, “Kyoto, Japan, imagining sitting in a nice modern Japanese house and seeing Sakura trees everywhere…”
Their responses shared a story of who they are and what they love.
Each geographical place I’ve lived housed people and memories that will always be special to my heart. Even though my childhood place grows further in distance as time goes by, if I visited it, I would not find the people and places that conjure those special memories.
However, it houses traditions, a people, and a culture that I absolutely adore and live out wherever I go.
So since none of those geographical places feels like home to me now, I create a home wherever I go.
I’ve spent the last year imagining what kind of spaces I want to create in my present home. My white walls will be painted colors of my choosing. I want to fill my walls with art and pictures of loved ones.
Last year I designed and planted my small garden space. It’s the one place where I get away from the metropolitan-concrete-city feel and see and touch the colors of nature. So much of it has now grown — I enjoy sitting outside and just feeling a part of it.
I’ve followed the love of my life wherever life has taken us.
He is my home.
It takes time, effort, and love to create a physical space that envelopes the feeling of home.
Once the aroma of memories begins to permeate each room, the sensation of being home becomes undeniably clear and welcoming.
There truly is no place like home — even if your home moves from place to place.
Thank you for reading. Where is the place you call home, dear reader — why is that? Thank you JoAnn Ryan for the inspiration, your kind support, and leadership here in the Medium community. Thank you, Debra G. Harman, MEd.for your invaluable editing work and support.