When someone thinks of a house, they think of the living room, the bedrooms, the kitchen, but most people don’t think of the memories you made in said house. Like how when you were a kid, you were running around the house playing with your new toys, or the time you watched your mom or dad cooking dinner. The laughing, the fighting, the love of a family. Growing in a home that has nothing but memories inside its walls, a place you know from head to toe, like that loose floorboard you used to hide your special toys in, up to the broken piece of wall that happened when you were playing too rough and fell into the wall. All the fun times you had, with a family that loves and cares for you.
Not all people grew up with that though, not all people grew up with the privilege to have a home over their heads, not all people got to stay in a home long enough to make memories. Some people move a lot, and some people don’t have very supportive parents, wheres their home? How can people like that feel as if their home? That’s because home isn’t a house, but a feeling you have. Home is that feeling you get when you feel as if you can be vulnerable, that you can let go and breathe, a warm feeling in your chest because you know your safe now.
Some people only have other people. Let’s say you were crying on the bathroom floor because you know and feel as if no one is there for you, and you’re too scared to tell people your problems because last time you did you were told to suck it up, but you have that one friend who just walks up to you and hugs you, showing that they are there for you. That feeling you get as you wrap your arms around them is the feeling of home, the feeling of being safe, the feeling that everything will be okay.
The feeling of home can come from anything, like a stuffed animal, to a friend or even an actual house. Everyone has a home they can go to, and if you think you haven’t found one yet, look a little deeper, and look a little harder, because the one home you absolutely need, is the one lying within yourself, the constant reminder that you are yourself, and you only need yourself if you are truly alone, you’ve made plenty of valuable memories inside yourself, its time to appreciate them, and love your home, because, that feeling, the warm feeling, that rush of relief you get once you feel it, is that home feeling. Home is inside you, inside your friends, and people you trust, it isn’t just a house or a simple building. It’s built and made with emotions and feelings. You can make anything home with hope.
-Toni R.