A Sense of Home
Home. A four-letter word with endless definitions. A word translatable in every language and understood by every single person in the world, yet understood differently by every single one. What is home to me? What is my definition, how do I understand this four-letter word? I don’t know. It’s hard to put into words what home means to me and how I truly understand the concept.
On a surface level, home to me is a house. A house in which I have grown up in since the day I came home from the hospital twenty-one years ago and have chosen to not leave yet. It’s a building that is familiar and has all of my worldly possessions inside. A place where I feel safe and comfortable and always welcome. This house is situated in North Vancouver, just off Lonsdale, surrounded by houses of all the friends I have grown. North Vancouver is in British Columbia, which is in Canada, which is in North America, which is on Earth, I could keep going, but on the surface level, to me that’s home. A building, that I have lived in my entire life, in North Vancouver.
If I were to dig deeper, home is where the people I love most are. Every day I go home to my mom and two younger brothers, who at this point in my life I couldn’t imagine having a home where they weren’t. A five-minute drive away, my two grandparents live, who I visit almost every day and have been massive parts of building my home. Home is where not only the people I love are, but also the people who love me, my support systems, the people who care about me unconditionally. There we go, home is not only a building, it’s also the place where I am accepted and loved.
Put it under the microscope again. People, places, all important but what is the feeling of home? Home is where I have experienced love, loss, excitement, fear, joy, sadness, anger, every emotion that is even possible, yet am always supported and welcomed back. Home is where I have watched people, I love more than anything, walk out of my life and completely change my perspective of what home is, yet have also been built back up to become an even stronger woman than I was before. Home is where I got the call that I have been accepted to UBC and every person who makes it home cried on the couch with happiness with me but it’s also the place where a family member passed away and everyone who makes it home cried on the couch with sadness together. When I fell when I was younger, my sense of home was who cleaned my scrapes and kissed it better. Home is where people are constantly proud and happy for your successes and there for you in your falls. It’s the one place you can feel totally and completely yourself and loved for being that person. So home is not a building filled with people, home is architecture made of support, and roofs made of love, its flooring of tears both happy and sad and doors that are kept open always with compassion and acceptance. Home is a building, filled with people, encompassed by a feeling.
Home is the place where I became who I am today. It’s where I learned to be polite and the importance of manners. It’s where I learned how to be strong and confident. The values instilled in me by my home and family have taught me the importance of hard work, commitment, following through on your word, never settling for just okay and always doing everything to the very best of your abilities.
Home. A four-letter word with endless definitions, but to me it’s a building, filled with people and values and stories and emotions and love. As Dorothy once said, “there’s no place like home.”
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Citations:
manyhappyrepeats. “There’s No Place Like Home.” YouTube, YouTube, 28 Nov. 2006, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ6VT7ciR1o.
erikapaterson
February 3, 2020 — 7:02 am
Hi Grace,
Thank you for your story about what home means to you. I like the way you begin with the idea that home is something unique to each of us, and this makes me think of a good question, now that you know what home means to you, how you describe or imagine homelessness? Thanks, Erika
grace owens
February 7, 2020 — 1:29 pm
Hi Erika,
Thank you for your comment! After thinking about what home means to me, I think that I would describe homelessness, at its very core, as lonely. Beyond the absence of basic human rights, being homeless must be incredibly isolating, lonely and ungrounded. To have no sense of home, or no common place where the people whom you love gather I unimaginable. I would not be able to live without the support of my home and feel strong empathy towards those who battle through without that. All the best,Grace
erikapaterson
March 5, 2020 — 10:54 am
Hi Grace,
Thank you for your response – so true, so sad. Among the First Nations communities, they at least have back their families now – now they need back their territories to they have a place to call home and to grow with.