A Safe Feeling

As I wake up, I look around the walls filled with colourful strips that seem to pat my back when I'm sad. Moving through the halls, pictures fill every corner, telling the story of my life. Of me. I get a whiff of a sugary aroma like a chocolate bomb exploded in the kitchen. Sitting on the table is always a warm, fluffy plate of pancakes, drenched with syrup and chocolate chips, which always makes warmth spread through me. Each day, I'm feeling blue. I think of the warm safety of my house. The way my mom pats my back and always knows what's wrong and how to fix it without me saying a word. How the couch knows where I am before I collapse. The remote that crawls into my hand without me reaching out. Even my brother seems quieter and less annoying. The house adapts to me. On days filled with sunshine, the house smiles. Everyone is getting along, even my brother and I. The house dances and sings, twirling in the sunlight. Laughter is echoing off the walls and racing down the hallway as if it has somewhere important to be. My mom’s voice is ringing out in a lighter, brighter way, as if it’s music playing in the background of our lives. The kitchen is full of the sound of people talking, and the rooms seem to be radiating happiness as if it has moved in with us. The house isn’t just protecting us; it feels like it’s laughing with us too. Sometimes houses change, and sometimes the walls around you are different. But when I’m with the people I love, I’m not scared. I’m still home. Because that is when I realized home isn’t the walls or the roof or even the pancakes in the morning. It's the people who fill those walls with love and laughter. Without them, it would just be a house. With them, it’s my safe feeling, my home.