What is Home?

What is home?

Its the familiar scent of incense sticks
wafting through your door each morning,
the warmth of your worn out blue blanket
as you hide your innocent secrets under it,
the tape marks on the faded yellow wall in your room
from your exotic 2nd grade birthday party,
and the leaves of the old tree outside your window
that grew up with you over all these years.

But is it just this place that is home,
or is home more than a place?

Home is also the toothless smile from the toddler
whom you chose to wave at on the busy street,
it’s the smell of pink roses and floral perfume
that lingers with you after a tight warm hug,
it’s the compartment in your brain that precariously holds
remnants of moments you wish to relive,
it’s the smudged mascara on your white scarf,
from the day your best friend’s tears rested on your shoulder.

So,
What if we never really had to leave home?
What if home could be found in the little things
that we saw and experienced each day,
in the innumerable people and in conversations
that we constantly had in daily life,
creating for us a home away from home,
one that permanently made you feel
that familiar sense of comfort
in the midst of all the unfamiliarity?

What if home was not all but a place,
but rather home was
a person,
an emotion,
a memory,
a simple sense of belonging,
of safety,
of comfort,
a feeling of being yourself,
of being heard,
of being accepted.

What if home was not what you thought it was;
but instead what you made it to be?