When you meet someone, you go through the typical round of get to know you questions. One common one is, “where’s your favorite place?” I used to answer it with the beach I grew up going to, then it became his arms, and for a while it was the rooftop I often escape to. But now, now my answer to that question is simply here.

Here is probably my favorite word in the English language because it encapsulates so much. Here is present, always. Here is never there or then, never someplace else or somewhere in the past. It’s the moment you’re in. It’s a combination of everything you’re seeing, everything you’re feeling, the person you are at that exact moment—the person you will never again be. Here is a gathering of every single thing you’ve been through. Every bump in the road, curve on the path, all the scars and stains, all the little imperfections you’ve collected along the way. It’s all the tiny pieces of who you are built up to that moment. Here is every smile you gifted, it’s the visions others have of you in their heads, it’s the clothes you’re wearing and the moment you’re sharing.

Here is relative. It is never the same. This moment is here. But so is the next. Yet, so much may have changed in that split-second gap. Here will never be again either. This exact moment in time will never happen again. All the things that are occurring right now all over the world only happened here.

Here is quite a special word. We plaster the word on all our postcards when we wish someone was there on the trip, or just there in general. We sign our name in sharpies on the bathroom stall with it to make some kind of permanence for our fleeting souls. The maps of the world show us that’s where we are, before they show us where we’re going. At the end of a journey, we shout it out. A joyous chorus that means we’ve reached our destination.

Here is also where you’re from and who you’re with. It is home and it’s the loved ones that surround you. All of us have been here. We’re here now. We’re alive, with air in our lungs and thoughts in our minds; we have this fraction of time. Here is something I almost wasn’t. I went through a few dark times, and a couple of them almost caused me to not be here. I almost gave up all this wonderful life. To mention it, I and you and everyone we know may not be here tomorrow either.

Through the tough times though, I have always silently applauded myself at the fact that I made it here. That I am who I am, that I have conquered what I have, and have the proof to show it made a profound impact on me. So next time someone asks my favorite place in the world, the answer will be here. And here’s pretty great.