Home

When Corbin and I move to our new apartment, I will (for the first time) officially change my address. All through college I lived in different places and received mail there but my permanent address was always 2000 Monument Ave. This time, I'm ushering in a new era: the era of “my parents' house is not necessarily 'home' anymore.”

This is a tough era for some people to welcome. To be honest, I'm not sure that I'll ever stop using the word “home” when referring to my parents house, but I am certain that the sense of comfort and familiarity that comes with a home is no longer something I feel when I'm at my parents' house. There's nothing wrong with this, of course-- I still feel the comfort and familiarity of family, just not home.

Corbin and I have been living together for about a year now, and I've known even since before we lived together that my sense of home comes from Corbin. I'm not sure I ever thought that a sense of home could come from a person, but I think sometimes people put too much stock in a space and the things in that space when really it's the people and the relationships that create a home.

I started this post earlier today and have had some time to think about it before finishing it. I wanted to examine the difference between that sense of family and the sense of home. I've decided that I think it's all about the crucial relationships in life. Growing up, it was my family, as it is for a lot of people. They provided for me, I saw them every day, they knew me and what was going on in my life. As I grew older, they became less given in my life and more human. They were no longer just my mom, dad, sisters, these people that were in my life without my consent. They were people who had feelings similar to mine. They thought about the world in ways I thought about the world. This brought us closer as people, but also distanced us in a way-- it put them on the same level as the rest of the world. Then Corbin became the primary relationship in my life, and he became the person who knows me best. The sense of comfort I get from him is based on our intimate knowledge of each other, the way we support each other, the way we encourage each other, fight with each other, yell at each other, apologize to each other, laugh with each other. And that's home to me. My family is my family, and when I'm around them I'll always feel the familiarity of the dynamic that I grew up with. They are crucial to my life, but they're no longer the people who know me best.


p.s. I feel that this whole situation may be specific to my age and where I am in my life. At some point the definition of  "family" will change. For now it's mom, dad, sisters. But in the future it may be husband, kids. This whole feeling of family vs. home will probably change, but that's to be expected given that it already has.