After reading various stories about ‘home,’ I found it rather interesting that for the most part, people’s assumptions and values were similar however, the details of the stories differed greatly.
Several assumptions related to home included the notion that it was an idea that changes and evolves. Some assumptions mentioned included the idea that ‘home’ is more than just being a physical location. It involves emotions, language, security, and a repeated value was that there are friends and family nearby that support and love unconditionally. One assumption I found throughout that wasn’t necessarily labelled but was present was the idea of searching for ‘home’ and that regardless where one is physically, as long as loved ones are nearby, one may feel safe and secure and thus feel at ‘home.’
There were some unique assumptions and values however that differed greatly from my own and others. One individual mentioned being close to home through art and music. I found this to be different as rather than ‘home’ being a location or place, it is an activity. Another individual spoke about feeling homesick while being on vacation. The idea of emotions being tied to ‘home’ came up several times including being happy, confident and loved, however, being homesick was only mentioned once out of the student’s blogs that I read. I was somewhat surprised by the absence of people mentioning homesick and then I wondered why I never mentioned it as I have experienced a number of times such as when I was living in California for six months. I wondered if this was common so I ‘googled’ it and sure enough I found many articles written on the subject such as one discussing how to tell if you are homesick.
The major difference was the fact that every story was different. The details of each story were drastically different ranging from discussing how they immigrated to Canada while others discussed living in one place for almost all of their life. Another difference was the pursuit of reality as mentioned by one individual and although I certainly do engage in this pursuit, I have never thought of it in terms of how it would be connected to ‘home.’
The last value that was mentioned that I figured was different from my own was having a ‘home-cooked meal.’ Although this used to be part of what I considered home when I was younger, it certainly isn’t now and I barely cook in my own kitchen. For the most part, I eat out or purchase ready-to-cook meals from the grocery store. I often feel very nostalgic when I think of my Sunday family dinners at my grandparent’s house but today, in many ways I try to avoid those memories as I have lost touch with most of the family I would have been surrounded by in those days. I am not sure why but I often think it is because I haven’t married and had children like all my cousins did. We have little in common. It has been years since I spoke to these people which is sad but yet I wonder what would we talk about. That certainly made me wonder what home is in relation to how each new generation keeps the spark of connection alive.
Works Cited
Chandler, Abigail. “14 Signs that you’re feeling homesick.” Metro UK, 13 Jun. 2015, metro.co.uk/2015/06/13/13-signs-that-youre-homesick-5237381/. Accessed 4 Oct. 2016.
