This semester has been one of extensive travel.

In the past five months, I have been to Houston (three times), Galveston, Cozumel, San Antonio, Greenville, Austin, and Dallas (twice). Basically, I was traveling every other weekend to a place that is not my home.

I moved to College Station almost a decade ago, so home for me is in College Station, though I am originally from Oklahoma.

Most of my friends in the area have homes that are close by. One of my most recent visits found me in two such homesteads. I got into the area where my first friend lives pretty late at night and navigating new terrain in the dark can be treacherous. 

As I was almost into her neighborhood, I saw the car in front of me swerve a little out of the way of something I could not see on the road. As they did that, I thought to myself, “Ah, this person must live here.”

A few nights later, I was sitting in another friend’s home when there was a large “CLING.” I looked across the room at my other friend from out of town and we both chuckled, “I love that clock,” she said. My two other friends on the couch hadn’t even looked up when the intrusive noise echoed through the room. They lived here, so they were used to it.

Being “at home” — in our minds, in our bodies, and in our spaces — is something that should not be taken for granted. While home is often thought of as just “the place we’re from,” there is so much more to what makes something “home.”

Home is the place where you know where to swerve because the road has a massive pothole. Where, even in the dark, you know how to move through the area as smoothly as possible.

Home is the place where you don’t even look up at the obnoxious noise. Where you know your space so well, that there is no room for surprise or the unexpected.

Home is, in some ways, like love. A habit. The creak of the floor. The sound of a laugh. The chime of a clock. The patter of footsteps. The smell of perfume. The aroma of fresh coffee. The feel of a hand in yours. The worn out places of a favorite old couch. 

All of these sensations tell you when you’re home. There is no way to fake being at home, not really. No one knows the ins and outs, the intimate details in the way that you do. Maybe that’s why it is so hard when home changes or goes away. When we lose the house we grew up in or the beloved pet we grew up with. But if there is anything I know, it is that home can also bend without breaking. Home can stretch and accommodate. Now that I’ve spent enough night’s in my friend's home, I have become at home here, too. I’ve spent enough time laughing by the fire's glow and bonding over the perils and pitfalls of graduate school that I feel at home anywhere when I am around my friends. 

Being truly at home is a gift. It deserves recognition and attention. 

Notice the moments you feel at home. The moments where you feel safe enough to slip off your shoes and sink into the warm embrace of love. Those places, those people— the ones that make you feel at home— are few and far between. I am grateful for the cities, the people, and the moments that make me feel at home. 

May I spend many more days in their warm embrace.