What and Where is Home?

Coming back to the Bay Area for Spring Break has really made me wonder where is my home now. What do we consider our home? Is it the place we consider to be the most familiar to us? I feel like at this point of my life I am trying to find a place were I can officially call home. I have this dire need to make something of myself and to find the place I will stay for the rest of my life. Though trying to find somewhere right now is not very realistic. By the time I decide to settle down, I will have lived in different places.

    I honestly feel like I've found my home. Before I get into that, I'd like to talk about the Bay Area. This valley is amazing. There are a lot of different kinds of people and cultures and its enormous. Also it's very well known. However I have no emotional ties to it. The only emotional string I have to my area is that the house I grew up in is there. I grew up in the Bay Area, but I never felt welcomed. Maybe I wanted something more in my life than the same old routine. I felt the Bay Area was way too spacious for my taste. I like feeling like everything is close. I always felt like I was going to move away at some point because I didn't feel like I belonged here.

    So now. My new home. I love my new home. This home is Oregon. Not specifically where my university is located, but Oregon. I have never felt so at ease as I do now in that state. This is the state where I made my best friends, I fell in love, had my taste of freedom. It will always have a special place in my heart. I love it there because the people are just so friendly. I can be myself there because no one knows who I am. I love the rain, the weather, the scenery. Because of that, sometimes I don't remember where I am. California sometimes feels like a dream. But I don't want to wake up. Although I don't know the city I live in all that well, I feel at home. But I wonder if the reason why I call Oregon home is because I live there 9 months a year. Is it the same thing with love? 

"Home is where the heart is."

Maybe calling something home is due from feeling super comfortable and safe. In relationships we are suppose to feel comfortable and safe. In homes we are suppose to feel comfortable and safe. 

    I guess I grew up in Oregon. Not physically, but mentally. Coming back to the Bay Area I see friends from high school, but they make me want to move on. Yes, we had good times and I had lots of fun growing with them, but I want more in life. I know quite a few people who went to the local college and still hang out with high school friends. I feel it defeats the point of going to college. I wanted college to be a time when I could become whoever I wanted to be without others bringing me down. But I suppose everyone is different right? Some people need the reassurance of people they know around them. Others just don't. 

    When I look at myself in the mirror, I see someone totally different. This girl isn't the same girl that looked back at me in high school. Change is always scary, but I chose to accept it because its undoubtably going to happen at some point. This girl is on her way to being the kind of woman she's always wanted to be and I'm happy. I just needed a "new home" to realize that.

Cheers,

Claire