Thinking About Home

I have been facing a deep struggle lately. I spend my life in a metal tube in the sky. Often I cannot differentiate my days as they begin to blur together after the third hotel room. All Hilton, DoubleTrees, Marriotts look the exact same. I text the ones I love, but it isn’t at all the same as a physical touch. I miss coming home to a house that feels like an actual home.

So I’ve been thinking about that word a lot lately. What it means to me to have a home. Well, I’m going to share it with you and hopefully afterward, I can begin to visualize it again into my future.

I have many roots in many grounds around the world. I am spread out amongst beaches, scattered along wide, open Texas roads, emotionally stamped onto a special person. Home is a Texas sunset, brilliant and vivid. It is the distinct salty air of South Padre Island across from the Tiki, my favorite childhood vacationing condominium. It is listening to country music at Saturday mass with my family while Father Roy speaks about his “dear ol’ boat”. It is having home made chocolate cake in the kitchen because mom knows how much I love it. It is being sticky and sweaty because humidity hugs me like an old friend. Home is deep conversations with Rey and Brianda that help me feel better about life. It is my home town that I fought so hard to leave and miss every day that I’m away.

It is in every destination that I allow myself to feel something in. It is in the Green Grotto in Capri that I swam in freezing water through. It is in Paris, with rosy cheeks and sore ankles because I wore the wrong shoes once again. It is in hostels where my friends and I felt alive (and poor). It is in Ireland along the windy cliffs that introduced me to international travel. In Seattle because I wanted to fit in with its hip-photo-loving vibe for so long. It is in every cup of café américain sans sucré that I ordered in Caen. In so many other beautiful, memorable destinations that I have gotten to go to, with this flight attendant life and outside of it. But how can I even explain what home feels so strongly like to me right now, as I write this on another airplane?

Home isn’t just one place for me. It may not be for you either. My boards are built along vast valleys, underneath star-filled skies, amongst the waves, and on top of mountains. They are secured by unknowing kind strangers, by those that know and love me, and by my past selves. I will live in these homes for the rest of my life. Right now, I am looking forward to going home.