HOME
Question for the day… What does it mean to be home? Is it a myth we believe, that we need to belong to someone, to some location, a place in time?
The word itself instills much peace. What exactly do we do when we are not at home? At home with ourselves, our lives, our bodies? Does home always mean a sense of location? I suppose it can mean seeing a friend you have long lost, and rekindling a kind of fire that feels so comfortable it is like being home. But what exactly is home?
I guess I am wondering because I recently shared with my family that I get homesick, yet I have nowhere to call “home”. I have no location to refer to, I have no house or yard that I can claim as my own. I am a lone reed… seems quite loneley indeed. And my conclusion was that I have them, my family – so spread out that we can not even see each other but once a year. The truth is that it is best, that we are perhaps better without one another, and that we are at home when we are apart because we are at least at peace. Ah… family is yet another topic for another day…
I am very fortunate to have many people whom I feel at home with. They are my friends, my colleagues, ones whom I share blood, ones whom I share intellect, and especially ones whom I share a past. And yet I have failed to feel AT HOME.
When one describes the place where they grow up they hardly describe the emotional place they were in, but they do remember every detail of the location, the sounds, the scents, and the atmosphere. The very thing that influences us in our environment is one of the first things we draw from in our experience of a home.
I grew up in San Jose, and every time i drive by my old neighborhood, I remember the old conversations I had with the school friends that I thought the world of, or the smell of the trees as we played outside, or Halloween running through the streets being comforted by everyone around us, and yet frightened because it was dark. Somehow, those feelings of home, those surroundings, can make me remember what it was like to be ‘home,’ but where is it? What is home?
I guess i’m on another quest to find myself, my journey back, or my journey forward, to be at home – comfortable with myself, where I am going, who I have become. i long for the day when I can get to a point and finally realize I have reached that very destination I thought I would never get to. And I hope that i will be wise enough to stop and recognize it.
Home… perhaps its heaven, where we are finally all at peace, never wondering, but just being where we are at, in the presence of our Lord, my saviour.
Confession: Sometimes I think all will be found when I am married, and “have made a home for myself.” That seems to be a lot of weight to put on one man whom never asked for that kind of burden: the burden of a lost girl’s home.
Anyway, just rambling now… any thoughts? What is home, is it just a myth?
home: www.m-w.com
Main Entry: 1home 
Pronunciation: 'hOm
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English hom, from Old English hAm village, home; akin to Old High German heim home, Lithuanian seima family, servants, Sanskrit ksema habitable, kseti he dwells, Greek ktizein to inhabit
1 a : one’s place of residence : DOMICILE b : HOUSE
2 : the social unit formed by a family living together
3 a : a familiar or usual setting : congenial environment; also : the focus of one’s domestic attention <home is where the heart is> b : HABITAT
4 a : a place of origin <salmon returning to their home to spawn>; also : one’s own country <having troubles at home and abroad> b : HEADQUARTERS 2 <home of the dance company>
5 : an establishment providing residence and care for people with special needs <homes for the elderly>
6 : the objective in various games; especially : HOME PLATE
- at home
1 : relaxed and comfortable : at ease <felt completely at home on the stage>
2 : in harmony with the surroundings
3 : on familiar ground : KNOWLEDGEABLE <teachers at home in their subject fields>
