I was born and raised in Doylestown. I moved around a lot growing up, but I never left my zip code. Between a series of separations and ultimately a divorce, my parents moved us all over my town. Despite that, I never left my little town of 10,000 people. I could probably take you on a walking tour blindfolded. I literally can't imagine what it's like to grow up any other way, in any other place. It was my forever home filled with all of the things and people I loved.
When I graduated high school that all started to change. My dad began to think about moving away some day. My mom had relocated to Manhattan about a year before. I moved away and started college. There were now three places that housed my things, three places to rotate between during breaks and my academic year, and three places I was trying to all make feel like my primary home. New York was relatively new to me, I was working on grounding myself at school, and trying to imagine a day when I wouldn't come back to Doylestown at all.
When I met people at school and they asked me, "Where are you from?" I had no idea how to answer. I'm at Penn State right now but, does that make it home? Am I still from Doylestown? Am I a New Yorker yet? When does a place become home?
Doylestown began to feel distantly less like a home each time I went back over the course of my school breaks my first year. New York still made me feel like it could swallow me whole as I tried to navigate the subways of a city with more people than I could imagine. With my flat iron in one state, my favorite sweatshirt in another, and my most precious things in a storage space somewhere all I could think was: Where the hell is home now?
Well, it's been about a year now since I left for school and began to think about where home is for all of us as we hang out in this purgatory of child-adulthood where home is beginning to shift. I've come to learn and am working to accept that home is wherever you feel loved and content. Home is not a singular physical place. It's defined by the people around you. Home is a feeling you get at 11 AM on a Sunday while you rehash the night before with your friends at school. Home is a warm embrace from your mom after it's been "way too long". Home is the feeling of excitement about moving onto the next chapter of life with the people you love. Part of growing up is recognizing that life is beginning to change and will be constantly changing for a lot of it. We owe it to ourselves to embrace it and find our homes in the hearts of the people we love and who love us.
