Home.

I gratefully received many donations to the "Sara-is-now-a-poor-graduate-student,-please-help" fund post-graduation. These wonderful gifts from loved ones require a little piece of gratitude, the always necessary thank you note. I strangely enjoy writing and sending these notes because I am truly so thankful to have such outstanding people in my life and I often do not take the time to express how much they mean to me. Something necessary for said notes, however, is the return address. Simple enough. You write down your home address and you are on your way. But what if you don't have a home address? Or better still, what if you don't know which address to put down because you have more than one home?

I've come across a few people who say that home can only ever be one place. A single place? One space to call home? While perhaps most people have that sole address to use as their home, not all of us fall so neatly into single-space dwellers. On the search for what home really means, I decided to consult an expert. Merriam-Webster defines it this way:

Main Entry: ¹home 
Pronunciation: hm
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English hom, from Old English hm "village, home"
1 a : the house in which a person or family lives b : ¹HOUSE 1
2 : a family living together in one dwelling
3 : the place where something is usually or naturally found : HABITAT <the home of the elephant>
4 a : a place of origin <salmon returning to their home to spawn> b : the country or place where one lives or where one's ancestors lived
5 : a place for the care of persons unable to care for themselves <old people's home>
6 : the goal in some games; especially : HOME PLATE
- home·like  /-lk/ adjective
- at home : relaxed and comfortable 

I don't have anything to say for number 6, but I can address the rest. Fortunate enough to dwell in a few places, my families can now be found in houses in Grove City, Ohio and Fort Worth, Texas. As it says in number 3, I am "usually or naturally found" in the home I've made with my best friend/ sister/ soulmate Bailey in our apartment, lovingly called "608". My place of origin, the place I am technically "from" is Springfield, Ohio. All these places are unique and special to me, not for the structure but for the individuals within it. 

^^^The last picture taken at my Springfield home

Saying goodbye to 3417 Ventura was hard this week. We all shed a few tears, and when we pulled out of the driveway for the last time, I was a little overwhelmed with nostalgia. For the years of baby pools and swingsets, for the backyard barbecues, for the middle school birthday sleepovers, the front-porch break-ups, the skinnydipping, and lightning-bug capturing. But leaving that brick ranch wasn't the difficult part, it was the people: the neighbors who became family, and the friends who supported me in my darkest moments. I often naysay Springfield, complaining about what it lacks and how I would change it, but that place made me who I am today. The county fair, the icy country roads, the reservoir and bike path... all of that is part of my story. 

I'm sure I'll have an entire blogpost dedicated to leaving my apartment when the time comes, but thinking about 608 and the moments that have filled that little space hardly allow me to call it anything but a home. It's where, over the last 3 years, I've lived out most of my days and figured out who truly I am. Many deep thoughts, popcorn, and tears and laughter have found themselves between those walls.

On the verge of moving to the Columbus suburbs, I'm almost ready to call Grove City a home. I'm thrilled to wake up every morning to eat breakfast with my baby sister, to run around the block with my father, and to have movie nights with my stepmom. More to come on all of that this fall.

And finally, there's a new space for me in Fort Worth, where my mama and daddy and little brother are settling in with our pups. We've already christened  this new place with laughter and a couple spills, so it's definitely feeling like home. The next few weeks here are certainly going to be an adventure. 

I'm thankful to have so many places to call home, places to dwell filled with people I love and who love me more than I deserve. Each  has come with its challenges and lessons, but something I've learned along the way is that anywhere those you consider family are, so too is your home. 

Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (2009)