They say that home is where the heart is

I guess I haven't found my home

-Ingrid Michaelson's "Are We There Yet"

I want to go home. Only trouble is, I don't know where home is. Anywhere but here, perhaps? No, our hearts must settle on a place, must feel a pull to a certain dwelling, hear a calling from a place of love and memory. But my heart has never settled. Once upon a time, my home was Mimi's. My junior year especially, when I spent every other weekend with her, I called her house my home in my head. When I was in middle school, I felt like church was my home. I relished every Sunday morning spent in Sunday school and in service, every Wednesday of choir practice. Often, school has been my home; a recurring theme throughout my life. When I was in elementary school, I often wished I could run away. In some of my more serious moments, I even planned it all out. I would live at school. (Not the brightest idea, I know). In middle school, I eagerly awaited the school bus every morning, dreaded getting on that same bus each afternoon bearing me back to my parents' house. In high school, I gave every excuse to stay in school an hour or so more: marching band, tutoring, detention. When I joined the youth group at my aunt's church, that church became my home. Where once upon a time any church felt like home, this time it was her church. The youth room, specifically. When I was prevented from going to youth for months at a time (and that happened quite frequently) my heart would physically ache to be there. Even now, I often refer to my apartment on campus as home.

If home is where your heart is, then I have no home. My heart is with those I love the deepest. And those people are scattered here and there. I have no place to call home. but it's times like these, when i am weary, burdened, scared, sad, hardened, or broken, that i long to run home. I want to run home. right now. but i'm stuck here.