I often get asked where it is that I call home. In my 32 years I have moved home 14 times in 12 different places – this averages a move every 2.2 years. It isn’t really any wonder that ‘home’ in the physical context is a very fluid concept for me. Is home the place I was born? Perhaps home is the place where I first started school. Home might be the house I lived in the longest (in spite of that being a maximum of 4 years). Perhaps home is ancestral home on the West Coast of Scotland. What is home to you?
We hear quotes and sayings about home all the time. Yet it seems that no words really, truly describe it.
Home is where the heart is.
Home is a place where your feet may leave but your heart will always be.
Home is where your story begins.
In many ways, for me, I find home not in places but in people. Home is found in the warm, loving embrace that can only come from my mum. Home is found in the laughter and the twinkle in my dad’s eyes. Home is found in the blending of voices when I sing with my sisters. Home is the thin, fragile skin of my grandmother’s hands as she holds mine and tells me stories from her youth. I feel at home within the easy conversation that flows with friends I have known since childhood. I feel at home in the knowing smiles exchanged between me and my best friend when something funny happens. I feel at home within the shared memories and experiences I have with so many people from my past and present.
These people and experiences are ones that I can always return to. They are places where I feel safe, without judgement, and where I will always be accepted and feel love. I feel safe in the knowledge that, no matter how circumstances change and how far I may wander, I can always come home.
For me – home has a heartbeat.
