Home. It’s
where we are from. The place where we grew as people. Where we learn how to
walk, talk, use a spoon, ride a bike. It’s where our families are, our
childhood friends. We know the back roads, the short cuts, the best routes.
Then home grows
too small. We can’t stretch our legs or run far enough away. Like Alice, we’re
sticking out of every open window and pushing the roof off. Eventually, we push
the familiar away, not wanting what we are used to.
We’ve spent
the first 16, 17, 18 years trying to figure things out. Then we want new things
to figure out, a new puzzle. If we push hard enough, we’ll break the plastic.
We trip and fall into the unexplored. Diving into dark water only to find a
shore on the other side. We become Lewis and Clark, exploring sites unseen.
But time
passes. We get use to being away. We lose touch with who we were, where we
were, who we knew. We transition, forming into a new mold, melting into the
cracks. Starting a new life is easy. But making it stick is hard. Meeting new
people, trying new things, going to new places, it’s easy until you have to
find your way back. We become well traveled, more knowledgeable but with nobody
to share with but our own minds. We try activities and foods that we would
possibly never try at home. But the novelty wears off. We get updates from
home, “____ is doing this,” “_____ is doing that,” and start to wonder, when
will “here” become “home?”
When will
the navigation turn off and the short cuts turn on?
When will
the friends you try to make become the friends you’ve always had?
When does
here become home?
