The Facets of Home

Home. It is one of the most unique words as it does not have a decided definition. It means something different to everyone. If someone were to ask me “where’s home for you?” the answers might go something like this:

“I’m from Canada” or

“I live in the States” or

“It’s wherever my family is.”

But what defines the place that is home? I have lived in the United States for almost two years now. I could say it is starting to feel like “home,” yet my passport and visa status remind me that I am Canadian, and that I lived in a different country for eighteen years of my life. It reminds me that the house I grew up in is in Canada too, crowded with the presence of my immediate family; my mom and dad, my brothers and sister, and even the sassy pets I once saw every day.

I could get even more specific. I spent my formative years in a small town, but that place never felt like “home” to me. The farm where I grew up did. When I came to Bismarck and started college here, I started to feel at home. I found friends, and one could say, a family with some of the people I met. Now, I must move on from this home, at least for a little while, as life takes me to Grand Forks. Will that be my new home? Or am I still home, in North Dakota? Or am I a stranger to this place, as my passport glaringly reminds me, and my home is still Saskatchewan? Even more particular, but so crucial to this dilemma, is the matter of whether my home is now with my boyfriend whom I have lived with the past two summers, or my family, whom I visit frequently but do not reside with anymore?

It begs the question of whether a person can have multiple homes, though this can muddle minds and create a murky distinction of one’s own identity as others attempt to perceive them through this definition of “home.” I am sure for those who have a parent in one country and a parent in another, it is also difficult to define where exactly you are from. A Canadian is not the same as an American. A girl living in the city is different from a girl that grew up on a farm in a family of six. And a student attending community college is slightly different than that of a university student working toward a Master’s. The differences are there, and the perception others have of you all depends on how you answer that silly question that tends to be one of the first asked of you when you shake that stranger’s hand at some networking event. They ask “where’s home for you?” 

For me, it’s usually a long winded explanation of how I got to where I am now. But the next time someone asks, I’ll be straightforward with it. 

“Here,” I’ll say. Because maybe the definition of home does not have to be complex. It can be simple. And maybe people will respect that.