At its most basic level, "home" is the place you go after school or after work. Ideally, you sleep and eat most meals there. If you add a "y" to home, though, it's something else entirely. It's about a feeling of warmth, safety and welcome. It is knowing you are where you belong.
My childhood "homes" where never homey. I never felt safe or secure and there was not much warmth. In high school, I attended a small, alternative program which quickly felt like home. I was more at ease, more comfortable at school than at home. The teachers and fellow students became my family, and helped to fill a void I'd had my entire childhood.
It was the love and acceptance I found in that supportive environment that taught me what "home" should be, how it should feel. After graduation, I struggled for years to recapture that sense of being where I belonged. It was elusive at best.
Then, in 1999, I met the man who would become my husband. From the very beginning, even before we became "serious," I felt that connection with him. In his arms, I found the peace and solace I'd been seeking for so long. Our first year together wasn't without its dramas. We were so young - only 23 - and we had some growth to do, both as individuals and as a couple. Yet, even when things were challenging, even when faced with breaking up, I found peace with only him. When my heart was breaking, he was there to hold me and talk me through it. He'd just let me cry it out, and when I didn't want to go "home," because it wasn't a home, he let me spend the night so I could be with the one person who could make me feel better... him.
Eleven years later, he is still my home. It does not matter where we go. We could sleep in the desert in sleeping bags under the stars. We could sleep at a rest stop along a highway. We can live in the country or in the city. No matter where I am, as long as he is beside me, I am at home. I am safe and loved, and I know peace.
The physical structures of homes are - at the end of the day - unimportant. It is people who make a home... and he is mine.
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