Stay home. Where? Home.

"Stay at home". They mean your house.

4 walls, a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, a living room, a roof, running water, electricity, wifi.

That you own. That belongs to you.

Everyone's got one of them, right?

Wrong.

And those of refusing to live in the boredom of ignorant privilege are fully aware of that.

For many around the world, the place they call home isn't owned by them, they rent it or live with the owner, without paying rent. Or they've had to construct a makeshift creation in a refugee camp that could be closed any day. Or they've had to leave it behind, dreaming of returning, hoping that even if they can't, home is a place they reach once again.

From this, we can agree that 'home' means a lot of different things, to different people, for different reasons. Realising this has coined the popular phrase 'home is not a place, it's a feeling'.

But then what feeling is that?

Just like home can look different when we talk about the physical, then it must also feel different in the emotional.

A while ago, I was in a writing workshop for work my job and we each had to introduce ourselves in 6 words, tell our stories. I said, "Liverpool. Keele. Texas. Leicester. Birmingham. Next?" They're all the places I've lived, that I've called home in a relatively permanent manner - (I have a habit of referring to wherever I'm sleeping that night as 'home', maybe it's the Metallica fan in me 'wherever I may roam, where I lay my head is home'.)

Evidently, a very simple way for me to tell my story was through my homes. And that's definitely an emotional thing.

Liverpool is where I was born and lived for my first 19 years. Then I moved to Keele to study for my BA in Criminology and History, with a semester in San Antonio in Texas. After that came Leicester, where I studied for my MSc in Terrorism, Security and Policing and trained to be come a Special Constable. For my first 'proper job', I moved to Birmingham and have lived there for the past 3 years.

I said 'Next?' as my sixth word, because I don't think Birmingham is my forever home. It's the place I needed to be in for the past 3 years, and I'm very grateful to it, but it's not forever.

In fact, when the announcement of lockdown was clearly imminent back in March, I moved back to my parents' home in Liverpool. In the face of uncertainty, illness and potential turmoil I wanted to be at 'home home'. I didn't want to be sat in my flat by myself night after night, I wanted people to share with, talk to and cuddle. Though there are definitely moments I've missed living alone, and I won't be making this a permanent change, I think it goes to show how much 'home' is really whatever you make it, however you feel it.

'Scouse' is definitely a nickname that's followed me since I first moved out, and I'm proud of the city I was born in. Liverpool will always be home home, but I have no idea if it will ever be a place in which I live again.

When life is being lived, I love having my own space to sing my heart out and dance like a lunatic in. To do whatever without really having to cater for anybody else, just bob along as I please. But as soon as life is drastically altered and things slow down, those moments need home home. And dad cuddles.

"Home should be an anchor, a port in a storm, a refuge, a happy place in which to dwell, a place where we are loved and we can love" - Marvin J. Ashton

The UK Government has told us all to 'stay home'. Simple, two words. Clear instruction. It's not though is it?

I hope you're where you want to be.

"A home should be a stockade, a refuge from flaming arrows of anxiety, tension and worry" - Wilfred Peterson

Should.

If you're not there right now, if you thought you were but that's changed, for what it's worth, I'm sorry. It must be hard.

I think the most vital think I have learned through having 5 home cities and visiting 33 countries in my mere 26 years is that home is something you can create anywhere, from your insides outward. If you are in a place and you choose to root down there and face the foreseeable from it, you're home. It doesn't have to magical and wonderful. It can be a physical representation of the rock bottom you may have hit in other ways. But it's the place you can pin on a map and say, 'significant things happened here', and then it's your choice. Do you step forwards out of it or hold it as a place to go back to?

It's your home. You decide.