Defining Home

This past weekend, I went home. At the end of the weekend, I came home. This is not a riddle. Oddly, these are both true statements.

Google Dictionary defines home as, “The place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.” I live here, in my apartment; this is the address I recently saved as “default” on Urban Outfitters. And I guess you can call our flex one bedroom a “household” of interesting makeup. But I do have another place, the place I am still registered to vote (and did vote), the place where most of my books live, the place where my parents live…

If I can up and Metro-North it whenever I want, the only permanent thing about either home is the train ride between, no? I honestly cannot say. But I will say a lot anyway, because this is a blog post. La di da.

I am at a point in life when not much feels permanent. Most people my age know this feeling: when your physical location, your job, your friends, and your career goals all feel in flux. True permanence means settling, and settling is for adults.

But my sense of having a home is permanent. Something I have always felt. Easton, PA was my home for a certain time. London was home for a few months. Now this apartment can claim that title.

But as I sit here and try to write the next sentence, I cannot decide how to refer to… it. The place I am not right now. “My parents’ house” sounds wrong. Is it home if I live here? Conversely, when I was texting my roommate my ETA, I started typing “I will be home around…” and quickly second guessed myself, changing it to, “I will be back around…” The word didn’t feel right, once again. Even writing about this is making me so confused I feel like dancing around a golf course and splashing at my reflection in the water hazard (people of my generation will get this).

According to sappy pop culture, home is where the heart is. The strongest physical manifestation of my heart right now, other than the one beneath my ribcage, is my parents. So home is wherever they are. Right? Wrong. If they go on a weekend trip to the Berkshires, my home is not in the Berkshires.

So why did I feel hesitant to call the apartment home? It’s likely my unwillingness to grow up, to change into something I wasn’t before. Because admittedly, this apartment feels like home now, too, but it also feels somewhat treacherous to admit that.

The title of this post is “Defining Home,” but I don’t think I will be able to do that. Home is home if you find yourself referring to it as such in a text, apparently. It’s where you feel safe. It’s where you can walk around in your towel and not care who sees. And I’ll stop there before this turns into a Hallmark movie script.

I will likely call many more places home throughout my life, and each will be tethered somewhat to the last in a sentimental way. Home can be a feeling, a person, even a place, but home changes with you.

The bottom line is, I am becoming more comfortable here in NYC, and that scares me, because it means I am becoming more comfortable with being away from my family and the places I know best. I guess that’s just the deal.

But regardless of what you extract from my aimless musings, regardless of where you feel most secure, or what this slippery four-letter word means to you, to paraphrase Dorothy, there’s no place quite like it, wherever it is.