No Place Like Home

My friend and I were having an interesting conversation yesterday about what feels like “home.” My friend is a recent transplant to her town in Florida and while she loves it, she’s not sure if it feels like “home” yet. I’ve lived in Florida for thirteen years now, the longest I’ve lived anywhere in my adult life, and sometimes I’m not even sure if it feels like “home.” If I’m honest, there were times I didn’t feel at “home” even in my own hometown. Truthfully, there are even times that I haven’t felt at home in my own skin. It got me to thinking that “home” isn’t really a place. “Home” is more of a feeling of security, comfort, acceptance, wholeness, belonging, peace of mind, and connection. We intuitively know we are “home” when we feel that perfect mix of these feelings all at once, wherever we happen to be, and with whomever we happen to be with. Yesterday, I felt perfectly “at home” with my dear friend.

I watched an adorable video this morning of a little girl belting out a song from the Disney movie, Frozen at a Waffle House. She was singing and dancing and along with her, a wonderful Waffle House employee was singing and dancing with equal dramatics and enthusiasm. They interviewed the little girl’s mother on the video, and she was gushing about this particular Waffle House. The little girl’s mother said that she and her friends think that it should be called “Waffle Home” instead of “Waffle House.”

We all know that distinction between “house” and “home.” A house shelters us, but a home nourishes us. A house is somewhere to stay, but a home is somewhere to heal. A house can be amazingly grand and perfect in every way, but if it is missing those essential ingredients of warmth and well-being, it’s just a lovely structure. Sometimes we go somewhere we’ve never been and we feel instantly “at home”. This just seems to prove that “home” is something that we carry with us.

We all have heard the adage, “Home is where the heart is.” When we reach middle age and beyond, our hearts have been stretched to many places, to many experiences, to many people, at many different stages of life. Maybe it’s harder to feel “at home” when pieces of your heart are spread all over the wide map of your own one life.

We all can agree, when we do feel “at home”, there is no better feeling. The people, places, animals and experiences which make us feel at home are the best gifts in life.

“Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” – Maya Angelou

“When you finally go back to your old home, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood.” – Sam Ewing

“Where thou art, that is home.” -Emily Dickinson

“God is at home, it’s we who have gone out for a walk.” – Meister Eckhart

“One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.” – Hermann Hesse

“Home is the nicest word there is.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1344. How would you explain your basic life philosophy?