Okay guys, I just found this in my drafts, and I've been wondering why I didn't post it in April of 2012 when I wrote it, but it's probably because it's sappy and cheesy. But who cares, I wrote it, and now I'm posting it. So there. And at the end let's just add Mexico into the whole mix of confusion because I am sure as heck confused about how I feel about my current home.
What is home? There seem to be so many places that I call by that name. So many people who feel like that place.
I got to go home; to where I'm from. Where I grew up, went to school, had friends, lived with my family, went on my first dates, ate Sunday dinners for 20+ years. While there, I got to sleep in my bed, in my room, with my blue walls that Mom and I painted together. I got to eat in my kitchen, walk around my yard, pet my dog, and sit downstairs while my mom sewed in her sewing room. Things I've done forever. I called old friends and went on play dates. I shopped, I chatted, I gossiped, I visited, I ate, and I missed those friends even more for having spent a little time with them.
We talked about where I live. Where I cook my own food, clean my own house, go to church, grocery shop, make friends, spend my days, go to school, cash my paycheck, spend my nights, pay my rent, and act like a grownup. Where people don't know me by my family name. Sometimes, when we talk about where I live, I say, "my home." Sometimes, when I think of where I fit, and where I belong, where I live
is my home.
So after the chatting and the familiarity of being home, I left again, headed for San Francisco.
While I was at the airport, a woman asked me where I was from. I got so confused. You see, I am FROM my hometown. But I'm also FROM where I live. But to throw another wrench in the wheel, I feel like I'm FROM the Bay. You see, that is where I first left home. That is where I served, and loved, and ate and walked and, again, loved and knocked on doors and took people on tours and loved some more. That is where I learned who I was, who others were. That is where I taught and listened and spoke Spanish. And did I mention that is where I loved?
So, standing at the airport, about to go on a vacation from my vacation, I was utterly confused by the concept of home. I wanted to sit the woman down and say, "Well, you see, my home is in Utah where I go to school, because that's where I live, that's where all of my everyday friends are, and that's where I work and study. But see, I've been in Arizona this week, and
that's my home. It's where I grew up, learned to ride a bike, and where I go to feel the ultimate in familiarity. I know everyone, and if they don't know me, they know me through my family. That's home. But now, we're headed to California, and well,
that's my home too. See, I served my mission there. That's where I was the best me that I've ever been. And that is a place that I go, and I just feel peaceful. I could spend everyday under the gray skies of the Bay area, and feel like I was home. There're some days when if feels like the ocean breeze of Puerto Penasco; where I spent my childhood summers playing on the beach; and that makes it even more like home. So where am I from? Well, I'm from so many places, and people. I'm from their works, their actions, my teachers and their examples, I'm from my friends and my family, my enemies and their posse, I'm from my work and my play, my tears and my laughter. And I call it all,
home."
