The Place Your Soul Calls Home

Photo by Nick Hillier on Unsplash

"Home is where the heart is."

"With you, I am home."

"There's no place like home."

These phrases are plastered on canvases at Hobby Lobby. Movies quote them. They're the tender quips that fill silent moments.

Home.

What is home? Truly, I ask this question.

Webster's online dictionary defines "home" as a residence, a family, familiar setting, or place of origin.

When I was a child, home was all three of those things. It was my street address where I lived, sharing a house with my family that I knew so well I could navigate by feel in the dark, in the state and country of my origin.

I feel rather stumped by the question these days, though. I find myself wanting to define "home" as the place that feels like home, and yet, I really can't say where that is at the moment. For a long time, home was still Minnesota, more specifically where my dad lived. In many ways, he was home, aside from a short angry season in college when I declared my home was in Iowa where I shared eight months of the year with three other college friends in a small house a mile from campus. After he died, the only place that felt like home was the cabin. I only made it up there a few times a year, but when I was there by myself, I felt like I could breathe - that I belonged there - and fantasized about what it would be like to live there for several months.

Moving into this house almost two and a half years ago was the first time the place I lived felt like home since the days in that little house in Des Moines. Finally, after seven years, all of the things I owned were in one place again. I beamed as I unwrapped my grandmother's china that had been boxed up in the attic of the place I used to live ever since my dad died. I was so excited to place it back in the teakwood hutch that had stood in the dining room of our house for as long as I can remember. I dreamed of stretching out the leaves in the dining room table to gather a group of friends around it for a dinner party, and was delighted that the tea cart filled another corner of the dining room perfectly.

It wasn't just that the house was full of all of my things that made it home. No, it was the delightful fact that two other dear people called this place home: my two kindred spirit best friends. The months that we shared life in this house were not without struggles, as this is the way of life, but sharing daily life together meant Star Wars marathons, games of Mile Bournes, sharing meals together, lots of laughter, late night conversations, and even some shared tears.

As time passes, things change, though. Within that first year, both of those dear kindred spirits moved on to the next phase of each of their lives. Other lovely people came to take up their spaces and we truly have had some unparalleled moments.

Somewhere along the way, though, this little house with its beautiful wood floors, plush teal porch swing, and beaming natural light, ceased to feel like home.

I have friends who have experienced the reality of homelessness and I would never want to cheapen that, but I would like to talk about an idea I know only to describe as homelessness of the soul - or the soul state of wandering. You see, ever since I walked across the rolling hills of the highlands last fall I have been desperate to move out of downtown. My insides are crying out for the serenity of the countryside. Therefore, it's somewhat of a relief that we have reached a consensus that one roommate's wedding in May will bring to a close this season of life in this little bungalow a block off Main.

Yet, a few nights ago as I pondered leaving I began to feel sad and afraid. This place no longer feels like home, but I do love the natural light. It feeds my soul to open the curtains every morning in the dining room and kitchen and watch the light stream in. What if the next place doesn't have a porch to take in the crisp fall mornings or early summer evenings? I'm afraid I won't have room for all of my furniture in the next place, and that it will be years before I get to set it all out in a place that's truly home again.

Places aren't the only things to provide a sense of home to me. People have been that much more consistently in the last ten years. The unfortunate thing is that the people themselves haven't been particularly consistent. Every few years they move or get married or we become involved in different things.

I've never been a champion at change. I once convinced myself I had learned to love it because of how much I had endured. Time soon revealed that was a mere attempt at bravado I couldn't muster.

I know change is necessary, even beneficial often enough. I know it is rare that we have the chance to carry the things we treasured most in one season into the next. Yet, somehow I'm always surprised when I see those dear people and places float away on the edge of the wake. It makes me want to grab hold of them and squeeze tight - if only to fully feel every ounce of goodness left before I am forced to let go. I know it takes open hands to receive the new.

And so here we are again in a familiar place, though not one I would like to call home. Once again, the challenge lies before me to savor the months that lie between now and what's next, to challenge the part of myself that believes the home my soul craves doesn't exist, and when the time comes to bravely step off this porch for the last time before striding through the new doorway for the first time.

Seeing as I have no life experience to draw from but my own, I wonder whether this dilemma of "home" is one relegated to those of us whose families no longer reside together in the place we grew up, or if it is the dilemma relegated to those of us still single beyond the age of twenty four, or if the search for home really is much more of a common journey we all undertake in one way or another. If it is indeed a common journey, I wish you peace and growth, dear friends, as you bushwhack and discover and build the places your souls call home.

~J