As many people know, not every house is a home. Growing up with a separated family, I had been bounced through a few different houses at a young age. But with every new environment, I still felt at home. As time had gone by, I realized that my inner feeling of home came from the individuals I surrounded myself with, rather the environment itself. I have found confront through the connections I have made both emotionally and intellectually which in turn have always made me feel at home.
I have never understood the connections people create with the houses that they grew up in. I always hear references to the meaning of ones’ “childhood home”; that it was always something that they would hold close to them. I agree, many memories and important milestones often occur in those places, but that doesn’t mean it’s a home, just simply a structure that they occurred in. To me, a home is created by the people within it. The people who helped create those memories that hold in the back of your mind. The people who have and continue to show you unconditional love and support through every endeavor. Those people themselves are the ones who hold those individual memories, not the house they occurred in. The emotions and events I hold within the people closest to me are what I remember the most. And that is why those are the people who make me feel at home.
As I’ve grown up, I have only met a small group of people who have gained that home connection within me. Whether that be my mother, who has done everything in her power to help support my dreams. Or my childhood best friend, who has been with me throughout every milestone possible. Together I know with them, I have gained the feeling of home and that will stay within me forever.
I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to create this feeling of home within people throughout my life because I know that it will follow me wherever I go into the future. It has taught me that home can be found anywhere that I end up. That the feeling of home is completely reliant on the people that I have surrounding me. Knowing that sets me to ease as I start my own adventure into adulthood, for I know that I will always have a home somewhere, even though I might be in a house at the moment.