home, noun

home, noun “the place where one lives permanently”

My home is made of red bricks with a dark slate roof. Inside hides a living room with the couch that somehow never lost its fluff, a dining room with a bookcase overflowing with works my mom collected over the years, and a kitchen that was once covered in bright red wallpaper but now sits plain and beige. If I run up the stairs, always two at a time, I’ll slam straight into my bedroom door. Behind it lives every version of myself: a sleepy infant, a five year old scribbling a drawing at the desk, a ten year old gossiping in a circle with her friends, a fourteen year old trying unsuccessfully to choose an outfit she likes on her figure. Permanently atop the bed sits a freshly eighteen-year-old me staring at the suitcases in front of her, her whole life stuffed inside. 

I often joke about the fact that my mom kept telling me she was going to get me a new bed frame — upgrade my twin mattress to something bigger — but never did. I guess she ran out of time because my needs aren’t as simple as a mattress upgrade anymore. After all, I was the one who decided to leave. That house hasn’t been my home since. It’s just a building to which I return for the rare break from school. A wooden frame on whose walls my childhood has been carved. 

Let me start again: 

My home is a quiet apartment in a blue, wood house in Ann Arbor, MI. I covered my walls in posters and drawings and everything else I own is sprawled across the floor, but it still feels empty. Really, my home is the town. I would never have expected that a college town in Michigan of all places could have such an impact on my life, but that town gave me my independence. It is the first place where I truly felt like I could breathe without the life support that was my family’s presence. 

Six hundred and seventy-three days. 

There’s a countdown in the back of my head that I can’t turn off. In less than two years, this won’t be my home anymore. I will have graduated, and the comfort of this college town will disappear. I’ll have to find somewhere else. Blue paint can’t be all there is.

Let me restart with a less literal definition. 

home, noun “where you feel safe and comfortable.”

My home is the beautiful people I have somehow been lucky enough to find. I am home when I am with my friends. I am home when we are all sitting on the same couch, one on top of the other, watching a movie, talking over all the dialogue, our conversation much more important than whatever we are watching. I am home when I hug my friends after not seeing them for two days, and we act like it has been decades without each other. Even during the countless long nights at the library, when I’m begging the universe for some crazy cosmic event that makes me not have to study anymore, I can look and see home right across the table from me. 

Unfortunately, I am not lucky enough to have all of my friends live near me. My best friend lives across the country. But I know that no matter how much time might pass between seeing each other, I will feel her by my side forever, and I have the most immense gratitude for that. The universe has brought me the best friend I always dreamed of, my maid of honor, the future aunt to my dogs. She is my home. 

Even if I wanted to, I can't ignore the only real constant. 

My home is five feet and four inches tall. My home has brown hair with the slightest red undertone at the ends from when I wanted to try something new during freshman year. It used to be curly but went completely straight in middle school. That hint of innocence has made its comeback in the past few years, waves starting to peek through. My home is covered in freckles, birthmarks, and scars, each with a story. I have countless times wanted to reject this home, find a new one, uncover its every tiny flaw. It is still sometimes difficult to accept that this is my home: “the place where one lives permanently.”

But my legs carry me where I want to go, they let me run and jump and explore the world. My eyes see the beauty in the world, the flowers, the sky, and the moon. I couldn’t possibly breathe if I couldn’t see that beauty. My brain lets me learn everything I am curious about and read all of my favorite books. My heart allows me to love and care for everyone and everything in my life. Sometimes I feel too much, love too hard, but what is life if not to feel, to experience living with every sense. I am grateful for that. I am grateful for my home. I might not always “feel safe and comfortable” in this home. But I am learning to.