Home

What is home? Some will say it's where your "family" is or maybe where you spent most of your childhood. Home is the place you are supposed to be able to come back to if you need love or to feel safe. The dictionary will tell you that it is the place:
1. Where one lives, or the physical structure where one lives,
2. A dwelling place with the family or social unit,
3. An environment offering security and happiness,
4. A valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin,
5. Where one was born or lived for a long time
6. A place where something was discovered, founded, developed or promoted,
7. A headquarters,
8. An institution where people are cared for.

Lots of different definitions for lots of different reasons. Home has always been somewhat elusive to me through the years. For most years, I didn't have a home, or at least I didn't consider any place home. First I was uprooted with a father in the military. My birthplace? A foreign country that I lived for three months. A place to come back to? I don't have any place from my early childhood to back to. Then the divorce and my family unit is split in two, so where is my home there? With the father I seldom saw or my mothers roof where I was abused, including sexual abuse?

Or the longest place I dwelled for five or so years. Is that home? My mother and step father and brothers all still live there. But there is the couch I was sexually abused on in the living room. There is the room I spent some dark nights torturing myself. There is the closet I practiced hanging myself in. There's the bathroom I almost committed suicide in. It's the place I lived out in undiagnosed depression and mania. It's the place I learned to put on a smile. It's the place I lost all the rest of my family. Is that a home? Is that what I call home?

No.

I've come to discover that my kind of home doesn't have to be a dwelling or a physical presence. It is a feeling to me. The city I live in is my home, no matter what apartment I live in or house. When I'm away from this city, I miss it. When I come back to the city, I feel a sense of relief. I have a nice apartment, but even that is not home. It's just a transition. Besides, someone else lives me with on the summers, and then it does not feel like home. I drove around for the better part of two hours- all around my town- because I needed solace. I drove around for peace. That's home.

These past couple weeks I've expanded my sense of home. I am finding my family. Some days I am not sure why I am doing it. The family is so broken, what can I possible find in them. But somewhere inside me, I know what I am finding: a sense of belonging, the possibility of being loved by another person, and just the pure knowledge of knowing where my family is and where they call home.

As neat as it would be if I was only comprised of just my mothers genes and fathers genes- their genes come from somewhere and that means that so do mine. Not only that, but the way they are. My parents were shaped by family and I never knew that family. Ultimately, I am also shaped by those that came before. I feel incomplete until I know that story. I don't just have a slew of step-family...but somewhere out there, I have a real family.

I know these days biological families seem over-rated or people talk about kids being okay with just step-families or adoptions or whatever. But for me and my life...knowing the biological families means the world to me. Knowing some of my family, like my father, has helped me understand that while I suck at math, I'm pretty good with computers. It explained why I had sarcasm as my mode of humor (mom's was opposite, sarcasm was my absent fathers). It explained why I looked the way I did and why I walked the way I walked. A sense of belonging overwhelmed me.

I've been in contact with my grandmother and suddenly it's clear why I hate the phone. Who knew it could be genetics :-)

I suppose one of the greatest questions on my mind...is the mental illness question. Bipolar and ADHD are both traced back to genes and heritary. From what I've heard, I know I had some interesting family members, but I have such a deep need to know if anyone else in my family has fought this fight.

It has been awfully lonely only having my mom and then all of my step-father's family during my "sick" years. They didn't fight this illness- not even close. And thus, understanding was hard. I know somewhere I have others fighting it, even if they don't know it. I long for that kind of belonging, strangely enough.

So home for me? It's complicated. Home is the city I live in. I know without a doubt when I need safety and comfort...it's in my city. I guess you could say I was discovered there. I was found. As a result, this city has become my home. And it is from the safety of this home that I am finally able to seek out my family. I am going to their home...to the whispering well.