Home is Where the…What Is?
Ever since I graduated college two and a half years ago, I’ve had a little difficulty defining the word home. I’ve always had one - actually, at times 2, or even 3, depending on your definition of home. I realize that some aren’t quite as lucky, but as someone, who, like a lot of the world, couldn’t fathom life without being surrounded by a roof and four walls, the word home never really had a clear definition and I still don’t think it does.
Until college, home was where you lived. Your parents were there, your stuff was there. You left school to go there when you were sick. You returned there after vacations. My room was painted pink - cotton candy pink, that I chose when I was about six years old and for some unfathomable reason, left it that way until eighth grade. Home was where my mom made crock-pot dinners and macaroni and cheese, and where I read the TV Guide, cover-to-cover, when we got the local Sunday Times every Saturday.
My family moved when I was fourteen, but since our house sold before our new one was finished, we settled for a little under a year in a less-than-stellar rental condo in a familiar neighborhood. It was where my stuff was and where my parents were. There was more take-out from our favorite pizzeria since the crock-pot was in one of the boxes crammed into living room. I, being the most vocal in the family in my decision that I DID NOT WANT TO LIVE THERE. WHEN WAS OUR HOUSE GOING TO BE READY?? was the first to set up my room on moving day.
After four years in our new house, I moved on to a college dorm room that was roughly the size of a generous walk-in closet. But when I was at class or out at a party or having dinner with friends at a diner, “home” became the Extra-Long twin bed fit with hot pink sheets and the Dave Matthews poster hanging above the bed. Sure, my stuff was there. My parents were not, but that was probably part of the appeal. Home became a place where the bathroom was two doors down the hall, where I hoped my roommate wouldn’t be on the phone with her boyfriend before going to bed so that I could turn the TV on to watch Friends or Sex and the City DVDs while I fell asleep.
I moved into a spacious off-campus apartment with two house mates junior year, which suddenly felt like home too. Not only were my things there (see above re: Mom and Dad) but we had hand-picked our own shower curtain and we had shelf-liner in the cabinets. I had a full bed - so the fact that “my own [twin] bed” was at home made semester break seem a whole lot less sexy.
At the end of my senior year in college, my parents divorced, sold our house and my mom’s new townhouse automatically became my default home. I started my job in NYC and lived with relatives (not home) until I found an apartment (not home) with three Craig’s List roommates (thanks Craig, but I won’t be visiting YOU again). My dad had an apartment that he wanted me to think of us home, but my mom’s place was where I went “home for Thanksgiving” and “home for the weekend” as if I were a sophomore at a suitcase school.
So I’ve decided. Home isn’t just where your parents are - sometimes they aren’t in the same place. Home isn’t where your heart is either, despite the adage, because if you’re anything like me than sometimes your heart can be in a few places at once
How about you? How many places do you call home?
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:30 pm
All the time I wish I would’ve done the traditional college thing and lived in dorms or what not! Ive really only lived in two places my whole life.
My condo I live in now, by my lonesome, is home sweet home.
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Home for me is the flatshare I’ve lived in for nearly five and a half years. The house I lived in until I was 23 is now referred to as my parent’s house. There’s no room for me there anymore anyway!
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Hmm, I don’t know really. I’ve lived in eight places (thanks school!) and although I currently enjoy where live, it doesn’t really feel like home yet. I’m not sure maybe ‘home’ is. Hopefully George Clooney is there when I find it.
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:35 pm
It is funny how you always expect the home you grew up in to be the only home there is. I was so amazed at how quickly my apartments got that sense on coziness about them. I’ve lived in seven places now in four cities, now… wow.
I actually wrote a little bit about this, too, if you search home on this site it should be floating somewhere around there!!
January 2nd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I’ve had so many homes now I use the word to describe lots of places. Home has been my university room (or cell), in both the UK and the US. It’s been my first flat in London, but not my second, because that was never nice to go back to. Currently home is a flat in London, and I have also been home for xmas to see my family. Since my mum moved out of our family home a couple of years ago, it hasn’t really felt like going properly home, but the word still fits. Maybe. I guess home is wherever she is, and also wherever I happen to have my stuff at any given time.
I would very much like a home of my very own though. Soon please!
January 2nd, 2009 at 6:08 pm
I loved this piece. What I’d honestly like to hear more about, even though I’m sure it’s none of my business and you’d have shared it by now if you cared to, is about being an adult child of divorcing parents. How did you go through that? What led to them getting divorced after so long, or made them decide that now was finally the time?
January 2nd, 2009 at 8:58 pm
This is exactly how I feel. Especially because my family has moved numerous times since I was small. My brother left to college, my dad moved to Asia, and my mom finally moved into a townhouse by herself. Coming home doesn’t mean coming home to a room I grew up in, but an unfamiliar place with a “guest room” feel to it. Now, home is a little in San Diego, where I go to school, in the Bay Area, where I’m from, in Asia, which feels like someplace I belong, and in New York, the city I’m head over heels in love with!
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:42 am
I am typing this from my phone but I consider home where I currently dwell. My dad lives in this city and I have lived here a solid year and a half now. I am generally on the fence with this as I still have few friends here. But it is where I work and live with my boyfriend and my two cats, so…
I also consider my dad’s house “home” because my mom and step-dad move so much. My dad’s house is a constant. And lastly, I consider the city I grew up in, went to high school in, as “home” (my dad lives in a city far from that definition of home). That is the place that I still refer to as “home” despite the fact that my mom hasn’t lived there in 4 years and I rarely go back.
January 30th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
I still have yet to feel “home”. I hope my next place can be home, but probably the place after that.
May 24th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I’ve been mailing my friends all day long to visit your article.
October 31st, 2010 at 4:51 pm
twin beds are great specially if the space in your room is not that large “”
November 22nd, 2010 at 8:23 am
you can have twin beds at your home specially if you always spend your night with a special someone .’*
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