“Cause I’m gonna make this place your home”

Cue the cliché of “what makes a house a home”? Talking about home and what it means to me is full of clichés, but finally, deservingly so.

Home is a place that’s warm. Sure, the heat better be on. But what I mean is the warmth of love and care from the people that you share your roof with. Home is a place that values sharing stories with one another, respecting the troubles of all, and helping with obstacles along the way. There’s a special feeling when you come home from work, plop down beside your loved one’s chair, and just share your mutual days’ adventures. We laugh at each other, cry with each other and smile to each other. The warmth of home is that feeling on Christmas Day when more important than anything else is being together. This kind of warmth is what home brings, right to the heart.

Home is a place that’s open. Free to speak our mind without judgment, valuing individuality and personal experience. It’s a place where you feel like communication is never an issue, and no treading softly on issues that are judgmentally deemed ‘not-to-be-spoken-about’. Don’t get me wrong, home isn’t a place with no conflict. Sometimes communication comes in the form of yelling and screaming, but all in good will, emotional and rightfully so. Home is an environment where we can all yell at each other, but because of passion and emotion not because of anger. A network of open communication within a home is what makes it work, and how the people of that home deal with issues with themselves and others.

Home is a place of trust. Keeping your word is important in any arena of life, but most so at home, with the full expectations of valuing a sense of responsibility for your words and actions. We all have those moments when we come home a little too late to our parents’ liking, only to have them flick on the lights as we’re stumbling up the stairs half minded. Instead of lying and not getting away with it (trust me, we aren’t as believable as we think), we tell the truth. We trust each other to be honest and forward. “Sorry, crazy party. Got a ride home though” has a better ending, then fumbling with your words looking for an excuse. We trust that those around us act with intentions of good will, and expect the same back.

Home is a place of warmth, openness and trust. With these in mind, home to me is unequivocally a place of growth.

Growth. A house isn’t much by itself, but the stories and journeys that take place inside is what matters. A home that is warm, open and trusting allows for growth, personal and spiritual. Kids learn to be adults, and adults…well, they learn to sometimes be kids too. Home is a place that brings people together, to grow together. It’s the struggles and the arguments that ironically bring us closer together. In a home, you learn to value hardships of your own and others, cherishing the moments and opportunities to grow and foster relationships with yourself and others.

Home is a place of warmth, openness, trust and growth to me.

What’s home to you?

Works Cited

Iyer, Pico. “Where Is Home?” TEDGlobal. June 2013. Pico Iyer:. Web. 29 Jan. 2015. <http://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_where_is_home?language=en>.