"There's No Place Like [A] Home"

“Home is not where you live, but where they understand you.” –Christian Morganstern

Isn’t it a bit stunning how relative the term “home” can become? Over the past three or four years saying “I’m home” has taken on so many different meanings that I’ve had to redefine it all together. “Home” used to mean Southern Illinois where I grew up, went to school, and where my family lives still. For about 19 years, that was the only home I knew and the only place I wanted to call home. After my first year at the University of Louisville, the city of Louisville began to feel much more like home than I could have imagined. I found myself getting confused as to when I should say “I’m going home” when I was travelling between Illinois and Kentucky. 

Then I complicated the situation even further when I spend two months in France the summer after my freshman year. At first, while living in a creepy, secluded room in the biology lab building, all I wanted was to return “home,” whether it be Illinois or Kentucky. But then I moved into Paris and lived with Staron family for the last half of my trip. It didn’t take much time for me to grow to love the Caroline, Thierry and Josephine or for me to feel like I was a natural part of their family. They were so welcoming, helpful, friendly, and comical and so much like my parents and family that it wasn’t hard for me to “make myself at home.”  I distinctly remember the day I came back to the Staron’s house from a weekend trip to Germany and Mrs. Staron said “Welcome home!!!!” I was a little surprised at how much I really did feel like I was home. I had all the sensations that people attribute to “home sweet home.” I was relaxed, comfortable, happy, and completely at ease. I even had my own bedroom, my own bathroom, a place at the table, a daily routine, and my own set of keys for the house. 

Even more surprising was how “homesick” I began to feel on the day I was leaving Paris to return back to Illinois. I even cried in the cab ride to the airport because I already missed the Starons. That’s not to say that I wasn’t ecstatic to see my family again because I most certainly was, but the moment was entirely bittersweet, because I didn’t know if I would ever return to my “home” in Paris and I really, really grown to love the place. 

This year I decided to come to Montpellier, France instead of Paris and so I was forced to adjust again to a new environment, new people, and new living place. For the first few weeks that I lived with Peter and Claire, I was extremely “home”sick for Illinois—and Louisville too. A little bit before I left for Vienna though, I began to adjust to my new routine at Peter and Claire’s, and by the time I left, I really enjoyed spending time cooking, listening to music, and watching movies with Peter and Claire. So when I arrived in Paris two Wednesdays ago, I was both excited to be back at my previous “home” and yet still slightly “homesick” for Montpellier. I can’t even describe the feeling of returning to the Staron’s house! Not only did I remember which subway line and stop I needed, but I even remembered how to get to the house from the stop! Walking through the front gates and down the little stairs into the room that had been temporarily “mine” was unbelievably exciting! So many memories and feelings and emotions and thoughts came rushing back to me and in an instant, it was as if I had never left despite the two years that had passed. 

Once again, when leaving Paris to return to Montpellier, I was torn between an excitement to return to the place that has become so comfortable for me and the sadness that consumed me when thinking about whether or not there will ever come another time that I will be able to return to the Starons’ house in Paris—a house and a home that I have grown to love with a very large part of my heart.  When I finally arrived back at Peter and Claire’s this evening, I was greeted with such warmth and affection from them both that I immediately felt “at home” again. And this evening back with them has been so comfortable and relaxing in way very similar to and yet still very different from the “at home” feeling I have at the Starons’ in Paris, or in my life in Louisville, or at my house in Illinois. Somehow each place provides me with unique and particular feelings of comfort, happiness, and love. 

And, in all, I’ve realized that “home” is most definitely not a place at all. “Home” is a feeling that one receives in the company of particular people. And these people that make one feel “at home” are “family”—another very relative term. I’ve realized that family is just as much a relative term as “home”. The people I now recognize as family are not just blood relatives, they are the people that provide me with feelings of warmth, joy, happiness, ease, comfort, affection, and care. I am very, very fortunate to be able to say that I have family and “home sweet homes” not only in Southern Illinois, but also in Louisville, Kentucky; Paris, France; Tamale/Accra Ghana; and Montpellier, France. And I could not be more grateful to have had the chance to meet and form lasting relationships with such wonderful, goodhearted people from around the world!!!

Well, I obviously have a lot of events to catch up on considering I have been all over the place the last week and half, but I just returned from a jazz concert, it is 1:15 a.m., and I have work in the morning, so I will begin playing “catch-up” tomorrow!

Bonne nuit!

“I have been very happy with my homes, but homes really are no more than the people who live in them.” –Nancy Reagan