Heading Home

This evening as I was packing up, I announced “I can't wait to get home.”

Truth was I was tired and happy that the day was coming to an end, but my comment was met with raised eyebrows. My co-worker had assumed that I was on the next plane back to Canada. In that moment it hit me, I was calling home a teeny tiny hotel room when I was in actual fact homeless.

Of course this caused me to ponder the facts. My home in Kelowna was about to become someone else’s and I was still in the process of securing a flat to call my own here in Austria. Since I had arrived here with only four bags of stuff, I would be faced still with making my new residence, home.

When I think back to my beautiful town back in British Columbia, I think of home. It’s where my friends and family live. However, as I made my way back to my hotel, I also had to admit that it too was home to me. If only just for the moment - and that when I made it into my new flat, it would also become my home.

So I got to thinking, what was “home” exactly? It was clearly a place of emotional attachment because no matter when I say “I am going home” it makes me feel warm inside. It could be back to my roots in small town Ontario, or where my loved ones reside or where I climb into bed each night – even if it is a teeny tiny hotel room.

But is home just a place? I started to think not. If it can be so many different places, then it must be a feeling. When I see my son or speak to him on the phone, I am filled with feelings of peace, warmth and love that resonate even stronger than the sense I get when I head to a place that I geographically define as home. And, when I am in the arms of a special someone I know that there is no place I’d rather be. That special moment is home to me.

I’ve decided that there is absolute truth to the old adage “home is where the heart is.” But it isn’t geographical. Sure it can be a place you seek solace in at the end of the day, or a place you consider during a tough time - but it can also be sound of your childs laugh and the arms of someone you love the most. And that to me is an even better kind of "home."