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.

This Year's Theme

In my last post I talked about my theme for last year's challenge which was balance.  While balance is something I'll always be working on I wanted this year to have it's own theme and overarching challenge.  There are many things I thought about doing and who knows I may use some of these during a future year.

The one I ultimately chose, hit me by accident.  I was at the dollar store buying craft supplies and they had 2015 calendars out.  I had no intention of getting a calendar.  We still have several months left to go in 2014, I tend to get at least one wall calendar as a holiday gift every year, and I am such a convert to digital tools that I gave up things like paper calendars and planners a couple years back.  However there was one that stuck out to me.

There was one with different doors from all over the world and different quotes mostly around doors opening.  I purchased it...hey it was only a buck...and am using it not as a calendar, but as inspiration for this year.  Is my theme doors?  No.  These images and quotes got me thinking though.  In most areas of my life I'm an optimist, especially when it comes to my friends.  If I had a role in life it would be the cheerleader.  I'm an encourager and I try to be as supportive as possible...to others.  I really stink at doing this for myself.  I see challenges in my own life as roadblocks and when things don't work out the way I had hoped it would I just see doors slamming in my face.  What I want to work on this year is seeing the closed doors as opportunities not failures.  When the door closes on one possibility another one opens it.  I need to take a step back and recognize what options I really have in these situations and if there are opportunities that may be better than the original path I was taking.

Photo by Riccardo Cuppini 

So that is this year's theme and partially why I'm choosing not to have preset achievements.  Let's see where the year goes.

“She knocked and waited, because when the door was opened from within, it had the potential to lead someplace quite different.” -Laini Taylor