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Home.

It’s such a confusing, difficult and complicated term to me.

Where is my home? Is it where I am? Where my family is? If so, are we talking my immediate or extended family?

Is it where I feel most comfortable? Most relaxed?

Is it where I was born and raised or where I lived for the longest period of time?

Where is my home?

Our society puts such an incredible value on this idea or concept of home. But, I don’t really know what that is to me and so, I often feel lost.

They say that “home is where the heart is”. If that’s so, my home truly does exist in a great multitude of places, for my heart is always at many places at once.

At any moment of the day you can find me yearning for one of my ‘homes’. I long to be in New Zealand, driving along the stunning shoreline, and laughing with my friends and family who live there. I long to be back on the farm where I spent my childhood going on adventures and exploring the wilderness around me. I want to be in the homes where my parents live, and sitting with them over dinner, laughing and chatting about the funny stories, old and new. I desire to be in the residence where I am living now, playing and giggling with my son while I stream some great, new, tunes on Google Play.

There are days I am desperate to move back to NZ – and other days I am yearning to return to my hometown. And then, of course, there are those days when I can’t imagine living anywhere different to where I am now.

Being pulled in all these directions all the time is exhausting. I feel like I am constantly betraying someone. If we’re here, we’re disappointing both sides of the family because we are close to neither. If we lived in one of those places, the other side of the family would be hurt because we had not chosen to live by them.

I have been challenging myself lately to really seek what is best for my little family of three. What is best for my husband, for me, and for our son.

This is a difficult question to tackle when you feel guilty for not “being there” for the people who have stood by your side for your entire life.

But, what is being a parent if not preparing your child to mature, venture out, and embrace his/her own life, doing what is best for him/her and will make him/her the happiest that he/she can, possibly, be?

I have been seeking to turn our residence into a “home” ever since we moved here over a year ago. And, I have little moments- pockets of time- here and there when the sun is shining in on our lounge, my son is lying on the floor playing with this trucks and my husband is standing in the kitchen, humming to himself, when a deep breath finds its way out of the depths of my heart and exhales a contended sigh – “I’m home”.

But, I’ve also had this feeling when opening the door to my office on a weekday morning, and I’m greeted by my plants on the window sill, the desk where I spend a good portion of my life, and my awesome “Zootopia” mug out of which I enjoy a great amount of homemade mochas during the week.

I have also experienced the welcoming feeling of being home when I have looked-out on the city in which I live-when I see the lights of the familiar buildings, hear the sound of streetcars rushing along the tracks, and breathe-in the odd, but familiar scent that rises-up from the subway.

Does that mean that “home” really is wherever I am?

Do I bring “home” with me wherever I go?

Am I at home when I am on the streetcar, on the farm, on the beach at Lyall Bay, in my office, in my living room, and on the street where I am walking?

Maybe.

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