I Define Home

What is the meaning of a home to me? What does it feel or need? One: Feeling Of A Home Home feels like a warm campfire to me, protecting me from the cold air of the outside. The strength of the fire is at it’s best. You can gather around with your family and just be there in the moment feeling warm. You can even tell stories. Each day that campfire will never go off. Unless it does not start to feel like HOME to you. But some campfires you go to are not even working at all, because it does not feel like home at all. It only lights up if you are feeling like it is a home. It feels comfortable in a home, like you are wrapped in a warm cozy blanket in the middle of winter. Home is safe, it protects me from the outside world. It is like an invisible barrier to strangers. For example, maybe you have experienced something terrible outside of home. Once you enter that invisible barrier (your home), it just fades away because you are too distracted from the comfiness that is around you. Home is a mother. It takes care of you for a long time. It can teach you some important things. For example, also taking care of it too. As it takes care of you, it can also start to be sick. What do I mean by that? For example, your lights are broken. That is like your mother (home) being sick. So, you have to fix it, to take care of it. I believe that is VERY important. Home feeds you some delicious foods. Not the walls of course (who eats walls?). This is your other mother now (the kitchen). In there, it can teach you to create your favourite meals. If you keep on trying, you are learning more things to cook or bake. Home is not one. It can be more. It can be your country, an old home, maybe even a fort you built in your backyard. You can go anywhere. A house, hotel, apartment, and other places. But ask yourself, does it feel like that unexplainable feeling which is “home”? Two: Inside A Home There is something else that defines “home” to me. Memories. Many memories are made at the one place we all love: home. There are all sorts of memories that are made between the walls of your home. It all starts with you. Maybe you are just moving into your brand new home. You are just getting to know it well. Or maybe, you are baking cookies, and you had an incredibly enjoyable time. Maybe, you discover that you have an attic after so many years. It is up to you to make new memories in your home. What else can you find inside a home? Family and joy. You can spend lots of time with your family at home. Tons of memories can be made with them. Such as baking pizza in the kitchen, gardening in the backyard. It is your memory to make. Joy can be found at home. Whether it is with your family or by yourself. Maybe you are watching a movie on your comfy couch. Or outside in the backyard enjoying the fresh air and feeling the warm sun. But, it is not just always that. You may feel sadness in your home too. What is very important to find in a home is diversity. Traditions from around the world. As well as beliefs. You may see some things from a family’s traditions when you enter their home. You may see new things you never could’ve seen before, and that is what makes a home beautiful. What are your family traditions? Sometimes, secrets may lie inside a home. For example, some secret recipes… Some recipes are so good that they are not shared outside of a home. Or maybe it is confidential that it must stay in a home. The walls, floors, and roofs are watching you, which means they will know all the secret recipes you create! Three: This Is Not Home You can go to some houses, and yes, those houses are not just any home. It is just a house. You may not feel the same things you feel in your home. For example, it is like the story of Goldilocks. That does not fit you. Places like those are hotels. Yes, it has a bed, a bathroom, maybe even a couch. But what is missing is your meaning of home; what it means to you, what it feels to you. When you are away from home, and you are somewhere else; that place can feel like a person. “Who is this person?” you may ask. That place can be a stranger to you; someone you have never seen before. It is like that stranger does not want you there. You do not want that stranger to be there either. You could miss your pets such as your cat, dog, hamster, bird… Maybe they are what home means to you. But, without them there is no home at all. But, anything can define home to you. A house is just walls, a roof, and a floor. Some places that you live in can be very uncomfortable. The walls can be ruined and old furniture can be rusty. The floors may be cracked. Your bed is probably broken and ripped. It should be habitable. If it is the opposite, that is not a home. You are living in ruins. But some people have no choice and must live in them. Those people could have once had a home that loved them. But, maybe they lost it. Speaking of unwillingly losing a home, some people can be evicted. Some people can even lose their jobs. Once they lose those, they lose their home. Some people do not even have a house to live in. Yes, people can be led down a sad path. Poverty. There is also an unwanted way of losing a home. That is moving. That choice can be unwanted. Maybe, your family is deciding to move to a new place. But, you do not want to. Because if you do, you basically abandon everything. That “everything” could mean home. Your school, the house that you call home, your favourite parks… Yes, everything can go in that one word. That is what home means and what it does not mean to me. What does it mean to you? How do you define home? What do you feel in a home? Home is an amazing place to be in.