We spend most of our time in a home of sorts, though geographical placement isn’t always homely. The idea of a home comes along with the pleasure of nostalgia & sometimes the pain of longing. Longing to either be back in a time that’s long past or be as far away from it as possible. Home, its a strange one isn’t it? 

 

First we must define what feeling at home really means & how on earth we’ll ever find that place. Has home ever been a place, is it the people around you? Or is it the comfort of having your own space & the safety in knowing every inch & crack in detail. When you’re young, home is so small, it’s the building which your family lives within, the place that you’ve always known. But as you grow, your horizons expand & home becomes much bigger, interchangeable & more often than not home becomes a choice. Your connections still remain in the place you grew up but you’ve experienced more & perhaps come to realise that you never really fit in that place. Do you remember the first time you went to a new city or town or country & felt that rush of adrenaline & pull from a place that houses people like you. You could have lived your whole life & never found this place, but now you have, it’s impossible to go back. Feeling connected to place has this deep indescribable warmth, though it’s strange feeling at home in a place you didn’t grow up in. The ties from these places hold you tight no matter how far you travel. 

 

I get the pull of home often, but it’s not quite as simple as coming back to my family house. As I’ve grown, I’ve moved & people have moved & I’m constantly met with tugs in opposite directions. I’m tied to places by my family, my partner, their family, friends who’ve moved far from where we grew up & friends who stayed. 

I keep theses strings tied tight & I appreciate them, but how can I possibly combine them all to find one place? 

 

Nature has this brilliant way of creating patterns & making sense of why our veins & tree branches & rivers & lightning have a connection. The correlation is the connection. It feels like a message, a sign that all of this is how it’s meant to be, like we’re all connected, like it’s all okay. No matter where we venture the rivers will follow bringing along memories of places that are much too far to be thinking about. It’s like you never left & no matter how content you are, part of you still wonder “what’s it like there.” 

 

It’s strange home, this earth, the people & places we’ve grown to associate that word with. It can become overwhelming, I’d like to go wherever the tide takes me but it’s pulling in so many directions I fear I’ll be thrown around with no direction. Or the pressure will erupt & I’ll sink to the very depths of all that I don’t quite understand. I’m not certain where I’m meant to be. Have I found it yet? Will I ever? 

 

Perhaps home is neither one thing or another, it’s a constant shifting tide with webs of rivers reaching, holding on to every loose tie. It feels as though home is this constant tug from those you love who you don’t see enough. It’s all of these strings keeping us attached while far away, keeping us connected. It’s this mess of wires & convoluted links that make up our veins.

 

This is our home & like the wind it’s always with us, keeping hold of the loose ties, & never ever letting them go.