Home.

The concept of home is a funny thing, it's funny in the least comical sense. It's funny because it's the only way to keep things light when you refer to the word and the societal expectation of home. Oftentimes home is represented as a warm place one goes to rest, a sense of comfort, a sense of family, a sense of belonging. That's a cultural depiction. Media, literature, and educational settings will preach this image to us. There's truth to it, that's why it's so widely used. However, there is a lot of things that aren't said about the concept of home. Namely, why so often people will flee their original home to create a different sense of place and space. The most popular answer: you grow up. But, as with many things, we aren't that one dimensional.

When I was 19 years old, or so, my oldest brother, Juben, asked me, "what do you define as home?" He asked me this mostly out of curiosity because a girl he had been dating said she felt as if she never had a home. This was due to a "broken" family setting. My reply was, "wherever mom and nana are. That feels like home to me." To this day, that is how I define my answer. After my nana passed away I had a fleeting feeling of complacency. I was beyond thankful and grateful to have my mother, but my entire life dynamic until I was 22 years old was, my mom went to work and nana would take care of me. Nana would take care of all of us. When I had an emotional problem or issue, felt sick in the middle of the night, I crawled into bed with my mom and I cried. When I was bored, hungry, or felt like playing I'd go see nana. If my parents were fighting, my brothers hurt me, or I didn't like anyone in my family, I'd crawl into nana's bed. This was home to me. I had a place for all my feelings. It was tucked in two beds on either side of my room. I was safe.

I think like most people who essentially lose the majority of their heart due to a loss in a person that means more to them than words will ever begin to describe, stories like this will never measure the amount of loss you feel. Never. Not until you experience this will the empathy begin to seep out of your skin, and in turn make you kinder, make you softer. People become gentler to you because the reflection of yourself is gentler.

Back to my point of home. I had been wanting to flee my home in Southern California. My grandma died in front of my house because my neighbor backed into her while she was on her morning walk. There is an invisible etching of her heart that radiates between our houses now. That is something I can't forget, my family can't forget. My father is a ghost in that house and the only words you ever hear are mere whispers spoken to my mother. There is a silent war that is being fought between himself, and himself only. Therefore, peace no longer lurks the walls my nana once protected us within.

I left that home. I came to another home that covered my skin in goosebumps and made my insides shrink. I didn't have that warmth anymore. Beyond family, I had built a family outside blood that nourished my soul like the desert sun. My heart had grown thick and juicy like that of a succulent, an aloe vera plant that healed my burns. My roots in Southern California were so planted. I placed myself away from it, away from my warmth. I needed to re-learn that sense of self dependence, just to humble myself, to remind myself to be grateful, to be kind.

When I visited my home in the desert sun again, I was flooded with warmth, everyday I was in arms that wanted to hold me up into the light and let me radiate. I forgot about hugs, my new home wasn't that of hugs, it was of nourishing in a different way, a way my roots grew away from. I had realized that my partner in life was the symbol of the sun in so many ways that in lieu with my mom and oldest brother, he was leading me to a new concept of home. I was growing up into this new life. A life my mom had already told me would make nana happy. Remembering the first time she told me that can nearly break me down into bones because it makes me so happy.

Whether you are seeking or you have found your home, it is ever-changing and it is everlasting within you. You always have the power to choose. In my weakest moments, I have to remember that. I have to remember that the moon radiates in darkness as bright as the sun decides to show the light of day.

“And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens with love like that.
It lights up the sky.”

- Hafiz