The lonely thing about living far away from home is that every day, without exception, you miss every single thing. Your homesickness makes you feel vulnerable and isolated.
Sometimes, you wake up in the middle of the night missing home.
You miss your books with the old leaves or dandelion flowers you forgot between pages. Sometimes, you miss sleeping together – you and your book, you and those characters, you and your mixed-up dreams. After all, those bedtimes were meant for reading.
You miss the familiar pictures hanging on the wall and your own comfortable bed. You long to see friends you haven’t talked to in years and still remember their hugs, filled with warmth and love. Even though it’s been forever, you know they will still see you in their minds.
You miss those empty cups and tarnished silver spoons, the torn and twisted rugs. You yearn to hear the gentle chime of your grandfather’s clock, softly striking each hour.
Home is where your heart belongs.
Home is your favorite black forest cake in the Red Ribbon shops. It’s the music you hear from the house next door. Home is seeing your grandmother’s face coated with a fine trickle of tears, noticing how they find their way down her wrinkled cheeks as if they were fairy’s jewels.
It’s where you wake up early in the morning and realize that your life flows in firm, perfect patterns, indelibly, and infinitely. Home is an intricate tattoo on the heart of eternity.
Home is where you hear familiar voices and feel a soft breeze. It’s where raindrops softly fall on the roof and warm sunlight shines through the window. Home is where twinkling lights shine in windows of all the houses scattered across the hillside. It’s where the mingled smell of wood-smoke and damp leaves float everywhere in the cool night air. Home is where, in the distance, you hear the cows lowing and dogs barking. In their familiarity, these beautiful sensations are comforting and reassuring.
Home is where you feel everything is OK just because you know you are home.
Being at home reminds you that you are complete. It is the time in your life when you savor the magical moments that make you incredibly happy. It’s the place where you can sit down and remember the sweetest parts of your life.
Home is the place to return when your world is falling apart because there you are safe and loved.
Home is where you can carry a cup of coffee while listening to nature’s stillness and enjoying the smell of your surroundings: the earthy grass and fragrant flowers, the lemony tang of eucalyptus trees saturating the air. Only the twittering of small birds and the faint rustling of leaves under the soft breeze can break the silence.
Home is incredibly peaceful , imbuing the kind of calm that penetrates your bones and settles deep inside your soul.
These are not ghosts. They are not just memories. These are all the realities when you’re home.
It’s so good to be home. It is good to feel the familiar things you love encircle you once the door swings open. It’s good to know that deep in your heart, you’re in a place of happiness, love, and peace. It is so good to be home.
Featured image via Sept Commercial on Unsplash
