Warning: This is a longish post with a lot of feelings.
In the past few years, my experience of "home" has changed profoundly. Through high school, as it is for most people, my "home" was my childhood home, where my siblings, my parents, and my dog and I lived together. That was an everyday kind of home; I slept in the same bed every night, I ate at the same table every day, and I knew which switches turned on which lights. When I got to college, UD became home and my family's home became "back home." For four years it didn't matter whether I lived in a dorm or in a house, campus was where I felt the most comfortable. I built a new life there within a community of wonderful people with whom I feel lucky to have been able to grow up. Then when I graduated and Katie and I moved to Columbus together, we built our own haven of a home which means more to me still than I could ever express. Apartment 4G was our safe place and we both dealt with so much in the year that we lived there; even when so many other things were difficult and changing, we still had our home and each other.
Now things are a little different. Being at the point in my life in which so many things are in flux, I'm learning to adapt to the reality of being a constant traveler, not just here in Spain, but everywhere. I don't have a physical location that feels like MY home right now which is a little sad. Since I moved "back home," even though know I know all the light switches, I've felt a bit like a guest overstaying my welcome. I'm so grateful to be able to be there and I know my parents love me, but I feel like I've been a bit slow on figuring some things out and I need to do my own thing in my own space again. I feel welcome at UD for a night but when it's time to go to bed there's nowhere to go and it's evident that I'm an alumni. Here in Spain there's no chance of "settling in," I'm a guest in someone else's home or a tourist everywhere I go. I'm definitely aware of the fact that this is what I signed up for and that learning to be more okay with being uncomfortable is a huge part of this experience, but it still can be a bit exhausting never knowing all the rules and feeling like I'm always imposing.
I'm truly really enjoying myself here and everyday I learn something new even through the hard things, but the lack of a physical home has made me rethink my experience of the word "home." I've always been very invested in my relationships with my friends and my family, (sometimes too much so), and there's nothing like being 3,800 - 12,000 miles away from the people I care about to make me appreciate them. But even more than that, when I don't have a place that's home, I have people who are. When people are your home, it doesn't matter where you are in the world with them or where you're talking to them from, you are completely comfortable in their presence and they make you feel like yourself again. This also means it's much harder to say goodbye to them when the time comes. This feeling is a little hard to explain, but I hope you've all experienced it at least once and know what I'm talking about.
This weekend I was lucky enough to be with two of these people and I think they might have been my 2 favorite days in Spain so far. Katie and I met up in Madrid on Saturday to visit our host brother, Jaime who is studying there. If you know me at all, you've probably heard of Jaime. When we studied abroad in Spain in Summer 2011, (which Katie, Kaitlyn, and I never shut up about), we all stayed with Jaime's family and became just like real blood siblings and also best friends. We all bawled when we had to leave and counted down months and days until the next time we could see each other. It's kind of a magical thing. Out of all the dorms at UD, Katie, Kaitlyn, and I all ended up on the same floor freshman year. Out of all the study abroad trips, we decided on the same one. Out of all the families in Spain, we got to meet Jaime's family, which became like our own immediately. Your "forever" people are special, and you don't meet them very often; that's why it's so amazing to me that one of my forever people was born and raised on the other side of the globe and somehow we were brought together. Katie is another one of my forever people who I've been missing a lot; we live an hour apart here in Spain but have only seen each other twice in a month! (This is ridiculous for us, as we had been used to spending every waking moment possible together when we lived in Columbus.)
There are some trips that you take to see the sights, and some trips you take to see the people and this was definitely a trip in the second category. We walked and talked, shopped and talked, ate and talked, and drank and talked, and that's all we needed. We saw El Rastro, the famous street market in Madrid, and walked for about 10 minutes in El Retiro, the famous park in Madrid and that's about it on the sightseeing list. The most important experience was being with our little brother together and seeing a small glimpse of his life. We laughed until we cried and that's something I don't get to do that often. We speak two languages and we've experienced 2 countries together, which makes for at least twice as many jokes. I didn't want the weekend to end and the train ride back to Ciudad Real was a little emotional. I am so lucky to have days like that, and people like that in my life, even if it's only for a few days out of the year.
It goes without saying that the girls on this blog are also my forever people, my people who are more like home to me than any other physical location on the planet. Because I know what it's like to have their light shine on me and warm me up in person, being near them is something I miss constantly. But every post, every message, every text, every call, brings me a little bit of home. I'm looking forward to having a physical place to call my own again one day, but for now, if I just take comfort in these people, I know I'll have a home for as long we live.
