All this time I have said that I enjoy traveling. But what I have recently come to realize, is that I am a traveler; who enjoys home.

Home is not just a place. Home is gracefully composed of so many amazing pieces of life to be considered your home. One main word comes to mind when I think of home: comfortable. The things, people, rooms that you see at home that make up the smells of your home, and the usual things you will hear. The things you touch, your bed, your towels when you get out of the shower, the plates you have always eaten off of. You get attached to your way of life, and we as humans grasp these things to have a comfort during the ever changing world around us. Like a stuffed animal a child is clearly attached to, carrying it around place to place and into slumber; most of us are subconsciously (or consciously) attached to our homes.

People make up a huge part of feeling at home. To be 1000% yourself around the people in your home add an unspoken comfortableness. People you love or are just used to help you to be yourself and carry onward in life. The foods that are cooked throughout your life, help comfort us after a hard, long day. Meals that you love and look forward to, that you can settle into the kitchen chair and enjoy. Your life happens at home and I think everyone with a place to call home would agree that it is much than just a building; physically and psychologically. Your city, your town, your state, your country is a piece of the world that is personal to you. Sports teams to root for,colleges to forever be connected to, a resturaunt that a childhood birthday took place at help make our memory. Our memories help make us who we are. To be connected to someplace most easily comes as a child, as everything is new. I have seen, first-hand, that it can take some adults much longer to make a home someplace new. Maybe because adults are already set in their ways of what home feels like to them. Humans are a lot like trees, it is a task to uproot.

Personally, I have been uprooted quite a few times and most people think I’d be good at re-adjusting by now but the truth is that I am not. I am probably better than most- by just knowing what to expect. If you sit in the darkness long enough your eyes will adjust to make your own light. In truth, not knowing a place, an atmosphere has caused a range of emotions for me in the past. I do have to admit, loneliness is something I can recall foremost. With no siblings, being in a new place knowing no one can be rough. But, a new place is also filled with a dewy morning type of potential. Fresh start and new light in a new place is something special.

If I think in the right light, I have homes in many different places. Although I currently only live in one house, my soul is connected to many different places in this country, this world. Certain cities have certain memories of my growing up. I can recall feelings from everywhere I have lived. I can recall the warmness of Georgia, the crisp January in Norway. I can feel the stars in the country of Ohio, and the eyes of green swimming pools of mid-July in North Carolina. The point is, it is the feelings and memories that make you at home. It is being able to be you and falling in love with the people who surround you. You have to be able to stare at the blackness of the sky while driving along the long highway and feel at home. You have to be able to sing in every shower, and stare at every cloud and realize they all look the same if you look long enough. If you can master loving yourself, everywhere and anywhere will be your home.