If you were to try and type in the word "home" into a GPS it will ask you to put in an address. But who said home has to be a place, or just one place?
When I was younger if someone asked me what is home I'd say my house on Long Island with my parents and my brother. As I've grown older though, and moved out of my house and into college dorms and apartments, I've found myself calling more than one place home. At first I didn't understand how I was supposed to call this random place home, but by the end of my freshman year I was completely settled into the home I made in Albany. This tiny little room and big city became the normal to me, it became the place where I would laugh until I cry with my friends and cry until my friends made me laugh. This tiny little room and big city became the place where all of my belongings were and where I would spend majority of my time over the years. This tiny little room and big city is where I would be educated, it was where I would mature and it was where I would make memories.
Ever since I moved out of my house on Long Island and into that tiny little room in Albany I've had a problem with feeling completely at home whenever I would return to the Island. It's a feeling that I know many people who go away to college feel. One person I know described coming back home as, "it's like you come home to find everything in your house shifted two inches to the left, its all the same but something is different and can't really pinpoint what that is. It's just hard to explain how you feel."
My hometown had become a secondary location for me. I'd have to pack a bag and drive three and a half hours to a place I lived in for eighteen years, lay in a room I've laid in for eighteen years, except it didn't feel like home because I was living out of a suit case and all of my things were not there. I'd drive around the town that I once did not want to leave and although much is the same it still feels different. I used to feel as if this town was mine but now I pass by all the kids and I say to myself this town is theirs. I'd walk into stores I have been in millions of times prior but it still just didn't feel right. I'd feel guilty for missing my college home when I was home and I'd feel guilty for missing my home when I was in my college town. It was weird, It is weird.
As I write this article I'm sitting in that room I lived in for eighteen years about to head back to my college home and the only thing I can think about is when I will come back next. I think it's because I finally realized something and accepted something. It's not that my town is different, it's that I am different. All the places in all the stories and memories I have are still standing everything is just as I left it except for me. I am not who I was when I left. And that's completely okay.
A piece of my heart will always belong to Farmingdale, this is the town that I grew up in, this is the town that shaped me into the person I am today, this is where I made some of the best memories and this is the town that will always be mine. My town has a saying of it's own, "Once a Daler, Always a Daler," and that is one of the truest lines I've heard. No matter how I change, no matter what new buildings go up and what stores close, all roads will always lead back here and I know I'd always have the people I met here to fall back on too. This place will always be a home to me and I will always be a Daler.
I'm sure everyone has heard the saying, "home is where your heart is," and that's another line I live by. I've realized that there is so much more to home then walls and a roof. As I've grown I've looked at home more as a feeling now a place. Wherever my parents are, that is home. Wherever my brother is, that's home. Wherever I turn around and see smiling faces of the people I love, that is home. Wherever my best friends are, whether it's the friends I've had for almost ten years or the friends I made in college, that is home. Home is even wherever my dog is.
A home is where you feel loved, happy, comfortable and safe, and I am so grateful that I can have more than one place, one person as my home.
