Home

Home. What do you think of when you think of home? Four walls? A roof over your head? Trees and a playset outside? Maybe home is your mom and dad. Brothers and sisters. For so long I thought home was a place. An immovable object where my possessions stayed. Somewhere where I slept and ate. When I was little it's where I learned how to talk and how to walk. I learned how to feed myself and how to play nice with my siblings. My home was where I learned, or learned how to obtain, my core values.  But that isn't home to everyone. Some people grow up in two homes. Some grow up without a mom or a dad. Some  grow up with two moms or two dads. Some bounce from home to home until they're adults. Some grow up in brick homes, others mud. Some in a cardboard box. Some people learn their core values at school. Or from TV. Or on the streets. Some never learn at all... There are so many ways to define home it's a wonder we can use the word at all.

I grew up in the traditional sense of the word home. A dad, a mom, siblings. But I never felt at home. Maybe home is more than just a place.

I just lost my home. I am sick. I've been unable to work for some time. I'm getting help and I am improving, but it's taking a really long time. The world, it doesn't stop. It keeps moving and demanding whether you're able to keep up or not. And some aren't. Thus is the plight of depression. I couldn't make my rent. And I lost... my home.

It's just me now. Raw, vulnerable, exposed me. But I do not feel without a home. For the first time in years I feel free. I am one with the forces of nature. I have to be. I get to be. I am at their mercy and their command. I see for the very first time the true beauty of the trees, the brush, the grass, the sky. I breathe with the wind. I sleep with the sun. I have never felt more of a sense of home than I have the last couple if days, being forced to truly accept things as they are.

I have my cat. I have his unconditional love and acceptance. I respect him, he respect me. I trust him, he trusts me. We have each other and we are never alone. In losing a home, I have found home.

It could be said my situation isn't a good one. Some would feel bad for me. And while a consistent toilet will be nice again someday, for whatever reason I feel that this is where I need to be in my life right now. I feel a sure sense of calmness, a peace. And in no other way could I have learned this lesson of home. That it is true what is said- Home is where the heart is. And I am home.