Young Writers Society

What do you consider home? Webster defines home as one’s place of residence. I do not agree with this. To me home is not just the place you live, but little things that keep you coming back. Little things that make it special, better than any other place in the world. Home is more than a house or an address, it is a feeling you get. A feeling you know you would not feel any where else. Home is a combination of feelings, smells, tastes, noises, and people that make you feel safe and secure. It is a place were you are free to be yourself. Home is not just one place; home can be a whole town. It might even take you a while to find a place to call home – it did me.

Growing up, I moved a lot. It was hard for me to settle in and find a place that I could call home. It always seemed like just as I was beginning to settle in we would move again. When I was thirteen, we finally settled down and moved in with my grandmother. Even after being there for a couple years, it felt like something was missing. Sure, I had a house, but it did not feel like home to me. The Amish neighbors, the large number of cows, and the wood surroundings, none of it was home for me. I found out what was missing when I turned eighteen and moved in with my boyfriend. Even though it took me a while to find a place I could truly call home, it was worth the wait.

Now, home to me is a broken front door and creaky steps. The smell of the wood stove and the sound of a chainsaw at five in the morning. The black civic sitting in the driveway, grimy from the dirt road. All the things that were missing when I lived with my parents were suddenly there. I felt safe and secure. I had never felt like this in any of the other houses I had lived in. However, it was not just moving to a different house in a different neighborhood. It was the people I moved in with, the smells and sounds that I experienced every day. It was waking up every morning to the smell of baby powder entwined with coffee, the morning rush as people get ready for school and work. It was falling asleep on the couch in Brian’s arms half way through a movie. It was being able to do all these things and knowing I was loved and being accepted for who I was.

For me, home is not 247 Gant Hall or even Marquette. Home is riding on a bus for ten hours to go home and eat mom’s venison stew and mashed potatoes. It is sitting on the couch with a caramel macchiato and my friends at Java Jacks; it is waking up in the wee hours of the morning to see Kaden, the most adorable two year old you will ever meet, staring at me saying, “Yum!!!” Home is my broken brown couch with the mismatched pillows. Home is where my heart is.

Until I was eleven, my family moved around a lot since my dad was in the Navy back then; we lived in Idaho, Virginia, Connecticut, and Maryland before settling down somewhere for good (in Maryland now, though different area than before). Growing up on a Navy base is an interesting experience too since your neighbors never stay the same for more than a few months, and you make friends with people who you never see again after only a year, sometimes even just weeks. So, it never really does feel like home since everything is always changing. But, I also miss it a lot. I hate my neighborhood now because it's so static and boring. The same people who lived here ten years ago, still live here and I can't stand that. I can't even stand it that the house is still the same; for so many years I wanted to move just because it felt like it was time to move.

Anyhow, though, I like your story. Well written, concise, and well said.