Redefining Home


Our first "home" in Brooklyn, NY

Americans love their clichés about home.

Home is where you hang your hat.

Home is where you lay your head.

Home is where the heart is.

There’s no place like home.

My definition of home has been gradually evolving over the last several months.  For five years, without question, I would have said that home was Reno, NVReno is where we lived.  Reno is where everything we owned in the world was at the time.  Reno is where we own a house. 

Then we packed up our stuff to moved to Mexico.  We put everything we could possibly cram into our little SUV and the rest we put in storage in Reno.  We lived with family and friends for about two months.  We moved our lives to Mexico.

While we were visiting Reno over the holidays a friend at church started to say welcome home and then stopped.  Do you still call this home?  I paused for a moment.  Yes, I still think of this as home.  But, why? 

Home is where you hang your hat.  Sure, a lot of our stuff is still in Reno, but the most important items – the ones we couldn’t live without are in Mexico.

Home is where you lay your head.  I admit I’m pretty attached to my own bed, but the bed I’m currently sleeping on is not the same one I slept on in Reno

Home is where the heart is.  Well, there are actually little pieces of my heart all over the place.  There’s a piece in Maryland where I grew up and where my in-laws still live and graciously let us stay from time to time.  There’s a piece of my heart in Texas where the majority of my extended family lives and I have so many wonderful childhood memories.  There’s a piece in Pennsylvania where I went to college, grew into an adult, and met five amazing girlfriends whom I know I will have for the rest of my life (they currently hold pieces of my heart in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Colorado, and Georgia).  There’s a piece of my heart in Brooklyn, NY where Dave and I lived for the first year of our marriage.  There’s a piece of my heart in Reno where we lived for 5 years, my parents live, we still have many friends, and Eli was born.  And there’s a piece of my heart in Mexico where I’m currently living and growing.  The list goes on.

There’s no place like home.  If my home is in so many places, how can there be no place like home?  In the end I’ve come to realize that home is wherever I’m known and loved.  It’s wherever I am with friends and family and most importantly with Dave and Eli.  It has nothing to do with the stuff I own and is not tied to any specific place.

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