What is home?

,, Home where my thought's escaping
Home where my music's playing
Home where my love lies waiting ” – very famous song from Simon & Garfunkel.
But what is home for you? Is it a nice house with all your favorite things, with loved ones? Is it a place you were born? Is it a place you live? Did you find your home? And most importantly, do you feel that you are home? If not, why wouldn’t you change it?

If we look for “Home” in dictionary we will find out several description of the word.
For example: 
1) The place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household;
2) The type of family you come from;
3) Your own country or your own area.

So, it is always easier to answer the questions:  where are you from? Where do you live? Than having an answer to the question: Where is home for you?  Our answer is depending on many different perception of what home could be and it is totally subjective.

According to British essayist - Pico Iyer home is not a place where you sleep, but also it is a place where you stand. He mentions that only by stopping movement one can find out where to go, only by stepping out of your life and the world you can see what you deeply care about and exactly that helps one to find a home.

In 2008, The Pew Research Center conducted a survey of 2,260 American adults about where is home? Thirty-eight percent did not identify the place that they were living to be “home.” Twenty-six percent confirmed that “home” was where they were born and raised; Twenty two percent said that it was where they lived now. For eighteen percent home is the place that they had lived the longest, and fifteen percent felt that it was where their family had come from. Four percent mentioned that home was where they had gone to high school.

Among people who took part to the research and confirmed that their home is somewhere else, just 51% say that they were willing to go back, they prefer to stay where they were currently, which is a perfect example of a fear of a not stable future and getting comfortable in a place where you don’t belong just because it is not too bad.

It is important to mention, that people can be attached to the places based on their roots or sense of place. People tend to call home the place due to the familiarity by continuous residence and created places.

I call home the place where I can be my authentic self, where I am accepted, where I am at the end of the day and in the beginning of the day waking up happy. Home is a mirror of my soul and most probably, that is why I try to decorate it, show myself as much as possible. But on the other hand, I could totally say that it can change anytime, it can be anywhere and it is all about us allowing ourselves to create the home.

So, if you are reading this, far away from your family, friends and people you love, I can tell you that it is just the beginning of a beautiful journey finding your place in this world, finding a home. 







Sources:

 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/home

https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2011/04/American-Mobility-Report-updated-12-29-08.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m6dV7Xo3Vc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Place_attachment