you bring me home

merriam-webster defines home as, “the place where a person lives.” the four exterior walls of a house with all of the rooms inside. the shared walls of an apartment. all that home is, just within those four walls of exterior or contiguity.

is that really all there is to it?

when i hear the word home, my first instinct is of my mom’s house in my hometown-

the place of which i live.

i think of the laughs we share over gilmore girls, the legos i build with my sister, the short answered conversations with my brother.

then, i start thinking of my hometown.

the people i know from it, how i was so desperate to leave it in my youth.

how i Did leave.

and if you would have asked me in that time what i thought of when i heard the word home, i’d say orlando. not my apartment, not my school. i’d simply say the city. then, perhaps, i’d go on a tangent of how much i despised the very idea of all things related to the smallness of my hometown in comparison.

and now that i once again find it my home, the smallness seems quite big.

rather than feeling suffocated by the knowing of everyone come to pass, i find a sense of comfort within it. like a big embrace.

my entire life i’ve had this insatiable curiosity. about the people around me, about science, about life, about myself. i simply want to know.

is this my way of admitting i am nosey? when i said “a sense of comfort,” there might have been an underlying touch of adrenaline-induced excitement of learning of others...

okay, perhaps,

perhaps i am nosey.

but i like to think of it as a side effect of curiosity.

despite this, i have always struggled with being known.

the idea of people knowing who you are.

your greatest achievements and most falterous failures. what makes you tick, what ticks you off. all the thoughts that run the race of your mind.

and i think that’s always been one of my issues with living here, being known.

it just felt so small, so suffocating. i spent the first seventeen years of my life out of breath, working so hard to be someone everyone wanted, concealing Me.

i just needed to escape it all and never look back. only then could i find who I really was.

i thought once i was gone, once i finally had escaped the labyrinth, i couldn’t look back.

if i looked back, if i came back, i’d be stuck. stuck in the quicksand that is Here. i’d be just like everyone else, lost in the comforts of settling. and i’d lose Her.

i’d lose the parts of myself that i had found.

i hate the idea of settling,

i hate it to the extent of fearfulness.

or, perhaps, the hatred is induced by the fear.

but if i take a step back,

am i truly content? do i really feel the stagnation of settling?

i wake up excited to go to work.

i love spending time with my family.

i get to see my friends.

i have a routine outside of work that i can stick with, or change on a whim. and it affects no one, but me.

i even get to spend time with my self, doing things i enjoy. i write, i read, i go to the gym.

when i step back and really get a good look at it,

i don’t see settling at all.

i see a life that excites me, surrounded by people that love me.

one that provides the peace i have been seeking for so long.

and when i look in the mirror, i still find all of those parts discovered since my departure.

in fact, i have yet to come across the person i was all those years ago.

before here was something of the past.

here is not my home of a lifetime, but it is of the present.

and for now,

    that is more than enough.

if i think beyond the instinct of a place, i see more to home.

i see a person,

i see people.

i see the extensions of myself in two bodies. one shrunk to half my size, and another stretched 2.75 inches.

i see so much of myself in the one of small. not when i was her age, though. she is much stronger than i ever found myself to be at that age. rather, i see the person i have been within her lifetime. every phase i have been through, i see her go through the same. as soon as she sees me move to another, i know she is not far behind. quite literally my “mini me.”

and the one of 2.75 inches, hair about the same length shorter, and 3 times the shade darker. the extension of me found a near decade ago. the calmness i feel around her. all the memories we share. cries we’ve swam in. being able to see her accomplish everything she deserves. seeing her grow out of things she never did. taking the power of her life in her hands.

i think of them, because home is people.

your family. the love of your life. soulmates of platonic. your best friend. the people you go time stretched without seeing and as soon as you see them again the spanning time seems to diminish to a mere yesterday. the ones you can’t explain why, but you feel like you could say your every thought to. the dearests from high school that always let you sleep on their couch when you visit.

and when you take the place, put it to the face,

you get experiences.

the inability to stop typing when a flow of thought comes to my river of writing. the things i see as i read scribbles on the pages of a book. practicing movement for my body. explaining a concept that comes so easily to the adult mind to the little people around me. looking down at their hands, seeing how little they are. how everything seems so little when thinking of them.

but to them, it’s all so big.

and, finally,

saturday nights at our hometown bar. places and faces and an eclectic mix of lifetimes make up the experience. the inspiration of this entire blog came from a night of thought. around the table, sits and stands

the girl from my youth, i see her as a new person each and every day, straying far from the mid-movie and top of the slide conversations. i see her feel everything with her entire being- knowing of all the hurt that could be around the corner, but allowing herself to experience it all anyway in the name of trying.

another of weaving. our threads of yarn winding into colors of the same as we have grown. looking nothing like the temperature blanket of our early adulthood, rainbow kitten’s our song dwindles in our minds. knowing pasts not shared across the bar table, i cherish the growth we have both trenched through to achieve.

an enigmatic sponge of a guy. so kind, he deserves an award. so caring, he’ll worriedly sit in a parking lot to ensure you’re all okay. a vault of information, one of the most trustworthy you might come to know.

another off in his own world. friendly to all, an asshole to the introverts, a dj for the ages. he’ll make you laugh until your inability to form words. with a heart of gold to match his golden personality.

the floating couple. their input making you think. seeing them is seeing the complements to each other. their presence reminds you that love does work out after all. and their addition of height, with a sense of style no one can touch and a nature of kindness you can feel radiating. one that’ll listen to you ramble about bones just so you’re not alone.

and, the glue that holds it all together. leaning over the table with wide eyed, fast talking, low voiced information. of our best qualities named, she shares them all. the information-keeping, caring, djing, style(s) enthusiast. the rose and bud, loved by everyone more than lemon drops and pickle backs, there she is.

in the moments of looking around the table at all the lifetimes before me, i thought of home. at the time, i couldn’t quite figure out why. it was just a thought. and,

a couple weeks later,

it returned.

as we were sitting within the walls of the after-bar, i asked one of them what home meant to him.

the question shuttling him off his planet, he responded with hand gestures of circling around and said 

“people. my people.”

i asked him if he thought that was too heavy a burden for someone to bear. he responded back

“no

i don’t think so.

but if it is, then it’s a place.

it’s here-

home.

and if that one changes, then back to people

flip flop.”

he said it so nonchalantly, even with a shrug. i looked at him and admired to myself. he is so unapologetic, in the absolute best way. he is so himself. he wears what he wants, says what he thinks, and always responds with his signature chuckle. but, in this moment, i specifically admired how simple he made everything seem to be in between his chuckles (even if the traffic of his thoughts were always bustling).

often unable to find the backroad off the highway, i mumbled “if only it were so simple”

but the truth is,

it is.

people warn you, just as i questioned of him.

they say it’s dangerous to make home out of a person. the weight of the concrete too heavy.

bones break easier than beams.

but now i say-

to hell with it. 

home is what you make of it.

home is what you need it to be.

it can change with the seasons of life, places you go, people you meet.

and what stays the same?

what do all of these things have in common? the places, the faces, the experiences

i mean, what makes home, home?

a feeling.

home is a feeling.

of fulfillment. of acceptance. of comfort. of warmth. of stability. of excitement. of passion. of love. of happiness. of peace. of self.

you can feel one, a few, or all of it, all at once.

and that is why we find it where we do,

it’s a feeling.

when i feel lost. like i don’t belong where i am, what i’m doing. reaching a dead end,

i think of all these things.

and there, in the fireplace of a feeling within myself, i am home.

i don’t even have to be somewhere with anyone doing anything to have it.

wherever i go, when i run out of road,

feeling it all

    brings me home.