Home is a strange concept to me.  When I say, ‘I’m going home’ I don’t see a place, a house or a single community.  I see people.  Family.  Friends.  My home is an idea, more a feeling, really, of wherever my loved ones just happen to be.

I live in the States.  Within these States, I’ve lived in five different cities in three wildly different states.  (Too many ‘states’???  Too bad…caffeine high…)

After moving across country as a kid, I guess you could say I lived life perpetually in the clouds.  I was never fully here nor there.  I was always writing, drawing, playing music, creating to the sounds of voices and pictures in my head of lives I saw myself living in different places.  I told stories of those characters who brought me comfort and salvation in a place that is, to this day, so foreign to me.

My head and my heart have always journeyed farther than designated boundaries, though I spent the majority of my childhood in a town where ‘Town Limit’ wasn’t just a sign, it was a terrifying dare to those born and bred “small town.”  I dreamed of escape, a most un-southern idea that was widely frowned upon.

While I have gained a deep respect and maybe even distant love for this world I grew up in, I feel complete and fully satisfied in knowing that my home is simply wherever my loved ones are.  Whether they’re all in one place or not.  My home is not a stationary dwelling or a single town, but a world of wonder and love.

Strangely, I do think that’s a difficult concept for many to come to terms with, but a lesson necessary for learning how to cope with life in general.  Having and putting down roots is certainly not wrong, in any way, but I do feel that once you’re able to differentiate the tangible from the intangible, a location from a soul, you gain a better sense of belonging to a greater community and people, and in turn, universal home.

Does that make any sense?

I know – all of this from a cup of coffee?!  Today…apparently so.  I guess voices and sights from the past brought on a bit of self-reflection as I’m visiting “home” this week to puppy-sit my family’s two old, OLD, little babes.  They feel like home…

…and it’s a good thing, too, because I don’t even have a bed in this house!  Ha!

XO