Home. . .

"You know that point in your life when you realize that the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden, even though you have a place you put your shit, that idea of home is gone. It just sort of happens one day and you can never really get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. . ."
-Zach Braff, Garden State


I have been thinking a lot about the concept of "home" lately. At the beginning of staff training Ian had us do a writing exercise about home. It got me to thinking how much my own home doesn't feel like home. . .

I know that I am ready to leave home because when I do go away I don't miss it. I miss the stuff sometimes. . . a warm shower, a soft bed, clean clothes. I could say that I miss my parents but I would be lying, I think. I miss my sister and my nieces, but I miss them when I am home anyway. . .

During the closing circle of the program I said basically the following: I have had a really hard summer and a really crazy year. It's not just that this program feels like home to me (although that is true) it is about who I am when I am here. I am the best version of myself. Everyone in the circle makes me a better person and I hope that I helped make them better people too. I am myself only when I am at home. . .

I don't think that my parent's house will ever really feel like home to me again. This year has been hard because I feel so uncomfortable here. This isn't home. . . but I'm not sure if I know at all what home is anymore. I don't know what home looks like or smells like or tastes like. But it isn't this. This is not my home.