Home is a Feeling

To me Home is not a place, it's not a building, it’s wherever you feel safe, understood, and loved. My home feels warm and cuddly like a big soft teddy bear. It's where I belong. It’s the space where you don’t have to explain yourself. Home is your Community, the people who share your struggles, joys, and traditions. It’s your Identity, the intersection of language, culture and stories that define your background. Your heritage, like the homeland of your ancestors, even if you’ve never lived there. But most of all to me, home is in the memory. For me, memory is like opening a treasure chest full of riches, greeting me with its soft glow. It's having a family movie night and cuddling with my Mom. It's having people who understand me laugh along with my jokes. It's going to pray on Friday with my family and seeing people with the same beliefs as me. It's my Dad tickling me and making my tummy hurt. It’s my dad’s bad jokes that we all pretend to laugh at. It’s the scrumptious smell of my Mom's cooking filling my house with warmth and spices, sweet, savory, and spicy. And the scent of her perfume when she gives me a calming and reassuring hug when I’m feeling down. It's cuddling with family in the morning, sipping on warm hot cocoa with cookies while watching old videos of laughter from faraway memories. It's seeing them after a long school day. It’s also the sad ones like visiting my brother's grave with grief. It’s remembering him with joy. I know I'll have to flip to the next page of my book even if I know someone won't be there. You see, home is not a place. It's a feeling carried within you, wherever you go.