Where Is Home?
"Home" means so many different things to so many people. If you look up the dictionary definition of home, you'd be surprised by how many meaning the word carries. It ranges from being the literal place you live (a house, an apartment) to "theplaceinwhichone'sdomesticaffectionsarecentred," "to aperson'snativeplaceorowncountry."
Until a few years ago, home to me was Geneva, Switzerland. And in many ways it still is. It's the place where I grew up, the place where my entire family is, and the place that when I travel to, I say "I'm going home." However, I've now been living in Cornwall for 6 years. The first few years of being there whilst I was at university, Geneva still felt very much like home. When I decided to stay in Cornwall upon finishing my degree though, things began to shift. I no longer felt that Cornwall was just a place I spent a lot of time in. I knew it well, and I felt happy. It felt more and more like home.
These feelings have had me thinking more and more about "what is home?" Like I said above, I think that home will always mean different things to different people, but for me it's particularly difficult; I feel extremely torn between the two. In one sense, Geneva is my home, because my family lives there and I feel a huge attachment to the area. But in another, Cornwall is my home now, it's where I work, where my boyfriend is, where most of my friends are, where the place I call my "house" is. I've certainly experienced guilt at the fact that I feel so happy in Cornwall though. Surely I should want to be in Switzerland? My homeland!
But more and more I realise that maybe it's ok for me to have two homes; one in Cornwall, and one in Switzerland. For the time being, Cornwall is certainly where I see myself spending the vast majority of my time (I can't be away from the sea for too long) but maybe one day I'll find myself longing for the mountains... who knows.
Do you ever struggle with what home means to you? How do you define what home is? I'd love to hear about your experiences with moving away from where you grew up.
