After reading the next paragraph, I want you to stop and think about something for me.
You just finished packing up your car. You get in the driver’s seat, buckle up and start the engine. Your destination is home.
Where is this place?
When I use the word home, I don’t mean the place where you lie your head after an eight hour work day. I’m talking about the place that can only be entered with the key to your heart!
This may be the house where you once lived and the address you learned to write in the first grade. Your family pet may be there and your childhood bedroom decor may be frozen in time to circa 2005ish!?
Do you see where I am going with this? I’m talking about home, the first place that comes to mind when you think of your world in alignment and where the motto “no worries” is taken literally.
I’m going to be honest, the day I moved out of my childhood home, packed up my car and moved to good ole Thib was quite the experience, but that is a different story for a different blog post.
The thought of never “living” at my house and having to “visit” the place where my life started was an unusual feeling. I tried to come up with a clever analogy to compare this feeling too, but I think it’s in a category of it’s own.
Going home is everything to me.
As I’m typing this, I am in my bed at my parent’s house, with my laptop propped up on my lap, hair in a messy bun feeling totally at peace and content. I only experience this type of feeling when I am right here in my childhood home.
I’m thinking back to what feels like yesterday. This room was a part of my every day. I remember the days I use to dance in my mirror with my pink glittery Britney Spears hair brush in hand belting out Baby One More Time…I know for a fact my parents are glad THAT is over, but I know they do miss this (just a little)!!
If I listen closely, I swear I can hear the laughter that once flooded my bedroom! My house saw many, many sleepovers where we reached maximum capacity in my bedroom nearly every weekend and breakfast food was served at all hours of the day.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but there is just something about “being home” that helps me reset. After a long work week, the idea of “going home” is what I need to unwind and decompress. As I am typing this, I am visualizing myself turning down my street and seeing my house.
Although I keep speaking of an address and four walls that are my home, I’m leaving out a crucial factor and that is the two people that built this place where I am currently sitting.
What they may not realize is that this house my mom drew up on a blank sheet of paper would be so much more than sheet rock, siding and shingles. It is so much more than paint colors and crown molding.
It is them. It is us, together under one roof.
You see, my parents raised me in a loving, care-free environment where we experienced every emotion from extreme heartache to uncontrollable laughter. We talked out our feelings on a regular basis and have had so many coming to Jesus moments, I swore I saw the white light a few times! Seriously!
I always knew my home was a place I could be myself without judgment. I was always allowed to speak my mind and encouraged to do so (perhaps why I can get a little sassy). I was always encouraged to express my feelings and given the time and space to be creative. Most importantly, I was respected for my thoughts and actions, which groomed me to be independent.
Where did I learn a lot of what I share with you? Most likely while sitting around our island on a Saturday morning or sitting on the counter in my bathroom as my mom brushed my hair before bed.
Home. My greatest life lessons were learned at home.
I know that everyone’s idea of home is different. We all come from different backgrounds. We all have different stories and pathways that lead to our home.
What I hope for you all is that after reading this, you visualized your home that makes you feel this way. For some of you, a physical location may be nonexistent. Some of you may experience these feelings in the arms of someone you love or it may take you back to a moment in time when you felt this way for your home or someone else’s home.
Not a single place in this whole world will make me feel the way my home does. I cannot go without saying…there’s truly no place like home and never will be.