When home doesn’t feel like home…

I guess I had always known that home wasn’t really home. At least it never really felt like a real home. In a home I assume you feel safe, warmth, like that place that you can always go to that will always be there to comfort you. To welcome you after a long hard day at work, or that place where you retreat to when you want to hide from the world. Yeah, home was never really like that. It was always just a place to stay, where I stored my things. And in a sense, that makes me sad. I know how hard my parents worked to create a home, but I think they had their priorities a little twisted at the time. While they did manage to buy a nice big house, we hardly felt like a family, and it wasn’t the home that I’m sure they had hoped it would be.

When I moved to Florida for my internship, I was thrown into this new place. With all these people who were in the same situation as me and I experienced living on my own for the first time. I was scared when I got there, nervous that I wouldn’t be able to do this on my own and I craved for home. But as the months went on, and as my husband and I started moving completely into our tiny apartment, it started to feel like home. It was a place where I would lounge around on my days off and somewhere I would retreat to. Walking through the door after work always felt like warmth wrapped around me, welcoming me to kick off my shoes and relax. It was something like I’ve never really felt before.

And now that my internship has ended and I’m back home, I can’t help but crave home again. Somewhere that’s mine. Somewhere that covers me in warmth and invites me to relax. I hate that I took too much time off from school and now I’m stuck here, at home having to make up for it. But as soon as I can, I’m going to get on a plane and go home. Where I really belong.