Home can mean different things to different people, but it seems that there are at least a few aspects of home on which we as a class can agree. Throughout the six stories that I read written by fellow students, I noticed a few recurring values surrounding the home that seem to constitute, at least for the people in our class (or more narrowly, the people who’s stories I’ve read), what home is at its core: love (of all kinds), belonging, safety and comfort, and relaxation.

The most common value I noticed was definitely love, and most often it was centred around familial love – which is why it feels very apropos that I am writing this blog post on Family Day, a day that is meant to allow us to refocus on family and take a break from the stresses of economic life (whether it actually achieves this aim is up for debate). Regardless, family seems to form the core of home, for both myself and many of my classmates. Even if we live far away from our family, we seem to consider home to be wherever they are. If not based on our immediate family, our sense of home still tends to be located in people – friends, lovers, or even pets. Home, then, does not have to be a physical place; it is much more flexible than this. Home can be wherever we go, provided the right people are with us. It can be something we carry within us, even when we are separated from those we love.

Another value of home, or perhaps we can call it an assumption, that I noticed regarded a sense of belonging. People spoke of being – well, I suppose the best turn of phrase would be ‘at home.’ They felt connected to the place that they called home; they felt a sense of their roots there, as if it were inseparable from their identity. Home is a place where we do not have to worry about fitting in, or presenting a certain face to the world. It is a place where we are accepted. I call this facet of belonging an assumption because the reality is that a lot of people feel like they do not belong in their various hometowns or houses, for a variety of reasons. Based only on my fellow student’s stories that I read, it appears that we all have been fortunate enough to take this sense of belonging for granted.

Another value I found consistently appearing in these short stories, including my own, was a sense of safety or comfort associated with home. Home is a place where we want to feel protected from the outside world (as one story pointed out, this takes on a new significance in the midst of a pandemic, where the safest place to be is in the home). Many of us see home as a place where we can allow ourselves to let our guard down, where we are familiar with everything and there is nothing to surprise us. It is a haven where we take shelter from the storm of life. I think this aspect of home is especially interesting because it is so fragile. Victims of home invasions, whose sense of security at home is disrupted, feel more hostile and depressed indefinitely afterwards. Thus, psychological research seems to affirm that this sense of security is a somewhat universal facet of our conception of home: if it is broken, we feel violated, and it is difficult to reconstruct this feeling once it has been shattered.

Finally, home is a place where we can relax. I personally see this as contingent on the other aspects of home I have listed; only if these other conditions are met can home can be a place to unwind. A lot of people spoke of the importance of feeling like their home is separate from other aspects of their lives, and the ways that this has beem complicated by COVID-19 – something I certainly relate to, as the home has become not just the home, but the office, the school, the doctor’s office, and the concert hall, among other things. However, it seems safe to say that our concept of home usually involves some sense of being at ease. It is a place where we can pursue the things that bring us joy and serenity, whether that be reading, watching a movie, or taking a bubble bath. This, to me, is one of my personal values regarding home: if I cannot feel relaxed at home, where else am I supposed to relax?

Of course, this is a non-exhaustive list. I found great pleasure in reading these short stories, and felt really comforted by other people’s ideas of home. It made me feel like I was at home, and made me grateful for the sense of home that I can sometimes take for granted. I feel that this exercise has not only allowed me to get to know my peers better, but has also helped me refine my own feelings of what home means to me. 

Works Cited

Beaton, Alan, Mark Kavanagh, and Carla Herrington. “The Psychological Impact of Burglary.” Psychology, Crime & Law 6.1 (2000): 33-43. Taylor and Francis Online. Web. 15 Feb. 2021.

Frazer-Harrison, Alex. “From Controversy to Tradition: 25 Years of Family Day.” Calgaryherald. Calgary Herald, 16 Feb. 2015. Web. 15 Feb. 2021.