What is Home?

I guess most people would answer this question by talking about a place. But it's never been that simple for me, and I guess that's why I ask, What is home rather than Where is home? I've been on the move my whole life. Before I bought my house, I had lived in 18 different places in 18 years. Different houses or apartments, different cities and different states. And since I sold my house, I lived in four different places, three of them outside of my birth country, before I took up a permanently nomadic existence. So far, this year, I've slept in 36 different beds, and there will be more before year's end. I usually feel quite at home wherever I am, but is that the same thing as having a home?

So, home as a place has been a constantly changing notion for me, and I can't think of my parent's home as my home, because I have been more or less estranged from them for most of my adult life, and they've moved around a lot in recent years, too, so I've never lived in or even seen the house that my parents live in now.

I used to have the romantic notion that I could find a feeling of "home" in another person... a soulmate. When I got married, I wanted to have Billy Joel's song You're My Home sung during the ceremony, because that idea of finding a home in someone while still clinging to my gypsy soul really appealed to me. That song expressed what I was looking for in a marriage. But my husband objected, because he thought that some of the lyrics..."use my body as your bed"... "You're my castle, you're my cabin, and my instant pleasure dome"... were too risque' for the relatives. Hmmmm, choosing decorum over romance... could that be one of the reasons the marriage didn't work out?

Anyway, I never have found home in the form of a person, because I've changed relationships even more often than I've changed homes. And not just romantic relationships. Friends tend to drift in and out of my life. Some are more tenacious than others. There is one ex-boyfriend that I visit on occasion. I refer to him as my emergency contact, because he is listed that way on my passport. He's probably the one person in the world that I would probably come back to if I ever decided to settle down. He's the closest thing I've found to a personified home. We're very comfortable together. We are equally weird. He makes me laugh. He likes me and I like him. We count on each other. But we've known each other for less than seven years. Where will our friendship be in another seven?

I've never considered my job to be a home, either first or second, the way some people do. And I've changed, not only jobs, but careers, almost as much as I have houses and relationships. And now, I've given up working (for a living) altogether. So, that doesn't do it for me either.

As I wander around in the world at large, I do feel that I am looking for something, and I've never known what that something was. But now I think I've got it narrowed down, and that is that I am looking for home. Whether home will turn out to be a person, place, thing, sight, sound, smell, taste or memory, I have no idea.

But this feeling of home does come to me in little glimpses once in a while. It doesn't wait to be invited. It just comes into my consciousness. Sometimes it's the smell of a freshly mown lawn... sometimes a light spring breeze coming in through my bedroom window in the morning... the sun dodging behind a cloud... a light spring rain... my favorite Christmas movies... a letter from an old friend... the taste of chocolate. Perhaps these bits and pieces are all I will ever have to call home. And maybe I've made a mistake in going to look for it. Maybe I just need to be patient and let it come to me.

What does home mean to you?