Chapter 68: Home.

i have an address that i put down under the category of "home." it's a standard address with the house number, street, city, state and zip code. after having put it down so many times on job applications these days, i'm starting to get that feeling when you've looked at a word for too long. it just doesn't seem quite right anymore.

but maybe it's not because i've been looking at it for too long, but because i'm seeing it for the first time. is this home? this quintessential house in suburbia that i remember as the place where i fought to be noticed as the middle child and fought the enemy of teenage-dom known as acne, the place where i was never sure of myself or what the outside world contained. considering that we are a society that always notices the bad, why do we put so much emphasis on home when some of our hardest days are spent in that very place? doubts about who we are, what we can do, self-image, self worth all arise in the home, according to freud. so why such an emphasis on "home is where the heart is?"

one thing that college has taught me is the transience of this label. one month into my freshmen year, i started calling my impersonal-and-lacking-any-kind-of-privacy dorm room home. i remember the shock on my parents face when it slipped out one weekend they were visiting. i could see the hurt in my mom's face so i quickly took it back. the worst part that made me feel even guiltier? i meant it.

home for me has become so much more than four walls that hold my memories. home is now defined by people, places, emotions, and so much more. memories with significance have become my home, not the place where those significant memories were made.

then again, i have the luxury of speaking this way because i do have a place to return every night. meanwhile, those people with thousands of amazing experiences long for a place to call home. everyone knows that children are better off with a permanent set of walls. and even with this job search, i'm certain that being able to fill out the lines under "address" makes me a better candidate that someone who can't. this, too, is a result of my home, where i was taught to never settle for the hand i've been given.