Home is wherever you are...

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Last Tuesday we had a seminary at school. The whole point was to learn how to use the focus group interview technique, but somehow I went away thinking about the topic.

We were supposed to write about a time when we felt  “at home” (obviously in some place other than our own houses…) It was a hard task for me to accomplish but I managed to come up to a page. I will not tell you what I wrote because we were supposed to remain anonym and I don’t want to spoil the whole purpose of the study. Also because it wasn’t a story of the highest quality and I am less than satisfied with what I could come up to…

Anyway, what I wrote is not what made me think, but the results of the whole research. We gathered in groups and analyzed a bunch of other people’s stories. All of them where different, completely different experiences and just by reading them fast, they all told different things. The amazing thing came when we started to look for things that would characterize the feeling of “being home”.

All 20 something stories said the same:  one feels at home when they feel secure, protected, when the feel loved, when they are allowed to be themselves, when they are accepted and when they feel that they can retain their agency.

During the focus group interview one very smart classmate said that the feeling of security comes from within, from being comfortable with the person we are, with our choices, beliefs, values, virtues and weaknesses. She said that usually, when we lack self security we tend to rely on someone else. Like small children rely on their parents to build up a sense of belonging, of security and a sense of “self”.

I thought a lot about that, I couldn’t stop thinking that we can feel home anywhere in the world, as long as we have people around us who help us become better, who cheer us up, who are there to strengthen us when our weaknesses take over and make us believe that that's all we are, nothing but a bunch of defects…

I am so thankful that I have that kind of people all around me, my sisters, my dad, my aunts and cousins, my friends, my dearest and closest friends!, my wonderful niece and nephew, my adorable, wonderful and amazing daughters, my “gubbe” (whose job is more like showing me when I am letting myself go and when I get overwhelmed by adversities or problems)… I have my beliefs, too, my values, my experiences and my memories…

As long as I can keep all of that, I am sure that I will always be home, because “Home is where the heart is”