Thoughts on going home

"At some point, we all leave and we learn the hard lesson that in life, you can never go home again. Not to the place you were. But you also learn to take all the best and hardest parts of your past and you build again. You find your shelter. It’s the infinite loop of discovery that we all travel. You spend years thinking you can never go home and one day you look up and realize you are already there." - Melissa

Melissa's blog wanders over a variety of topics including some I understand (music), some I can't for lack of experience (parenthood), and some I never will (women's fashion). Above all, I appreciate her thoughtful candor and beautifully written posts. Her pictures make me melt, too.

While her life experiences have been different than mine, this post really resonated with me.

I've spoken before how I believe that home is being with people you love.

Maybe it's because I lived in six different houses in three different states before I was thirteen.

Maybe it's because there are so many beautiful places to see and if I'm in one of those spaces with those that I love - eating a good meal and laughing; drinking coffee in the early morning light; wandering the streets or the woods - I don't miss the physical house that is supposed to be "home." I know I've carried the important part with me.

Maybe it's because I know that however wonderful, that house could burn down or - in the case of my family home being situated in the Midwest - be leveled by a tornado. But no force of nature can touch my memories of times with those that I love.

Some people spend their lives fearful to leave where they've always been and other are always clamoring to get back to where they came from.

Me, I want to take my joy in where I am in this moment and where I am going.

Because when you re-envision what home is, you can always go there, again and again and again.