A place to call home

On my 27 hour way back to school from spring break, I had a lot of time to think about where home is. Was I leaving home or going home? I still can't answer that. My home home, is the same house I grew up in and has been ours for 30 years. It really is my home. Or at least it was until school. I noticed that getting back to my dorm I feel the same relaxed feeling as when I go to my house. It is my bed in the room, all my stuff is there, and it is my natural habitat. But what does that make my house?

As I pondered this, I discussed this with some friends at school. They suggested that maybe since I haven't been at my house for longer than a month at a time since I started school that was the problem and the reason for the shift; though they too felt the shift of their 'home' base and had spent their whole summers at home...so maybe that's not the reason.

Whatever the reason is, it seems to bother me more than others at school. They have gotten used to bm being home and feel like they are coming home at the end of each summer. For some reason this does not settle with me. My HOME is back in CA with my family...at least deep down I feel it should be. I suppose what makes the difference to me is the level of comfort I have in a certain place. I am never more conformable than at my house, but as I visit home on breaks, I am simply a visitor. I come with only a suitcase of clothing and belongings, and put them away in empty drawers and cabinets. I never have everything with me at one place. My room with all my personal belongings, is at my house, but my dorm room has all my important belongings and is my home for day to day life for most of the year. Yet I hesitate to call it my home. I am not from bm, or the surrounding area, so that is foreign, but campus is not.

At some point I like to think that my home is where my family is...after all isn't home where the heart is? But that I find is not right. It is true, my dogs are at home, in my house, but my family can come visit me at school and it does not make it anymore like home than before.

Obviously, from discussion with friends, I am having the most trouble with this...finding a stable place to call home. Maybe it is because my home is my comfort zone, and plays an important part in my life. Can you really have more than one home? (I don't mean a place where your belonging are or an address, but a place that encompasses everything a home FEELS like.)