Finding Home

Last month I talked about the theme for this year of trying to see everything as an opportunity and looking for open doors.  This month I've been thinking a lot about home.  What is a home?  Who makes up your home?  I have two wonderful sisters and they are my family.  They both have significant others and extended families as a result.  I don't feel left out by my sisters at all, but there are times where it does feel a bit like odd man out, particularly around holidays.  I'm never left out, but there are times when I choose to bow out of functions because I don't quite fit into the mix.

This doesn't make me wish I was in a relationship.  I actually think that is a really dangerous path I've witnessed some friends go down, pursuing relationships because everyone around them is in a couple.  I don't see single hood as the issue, for me any way.  The issue is what is home?  Who is home?  Where am I comfortable in my own skin?

I've been obsessed with reading books by Rebecca Solnit lately. She writes on topics that are obsessions of mine, walking, getting lost, etc.  In a book of her's that I am currently reading, The Far Away Nearby she focuses on storytelling and empathy.  There was a passage that stuck out to me as I've been reflecting on home.  "...places were more reliable than human beings, and often much longer-lasting..."  That may seem cold, but I've lived in New York for over seven years now.  Friends come and go, but the city is constant.  Is that my home?

Photo by Zara Gonzalez 

Lately I have also been obsessed with purging my apartment of things I don't need/want.  My hope is to eventually update the layout and decor to reflect myself better.  I've always been a renter and never a property owner, yet I'm very interested in making this place feel more like me.  Is my apartment my home?

Friends are also key.  I have friends both near and far.  I don't get to see many of my friends as often as I would like, but my closest friends and I are always able to pick up where we left off.  Is that home?

The answer I think is all of the above are home.  It isn't a place or a particular person, but a weaving of both past and present.  Any gaps I feel or moments of displacement are like rooms that are bare.  They are there I just need to figure out what to fill them with.