Finally Finding a Home

There are days like this, where my college dorm roommates are gone and I have our on-campus apartment to myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my roommates.

But I love finally feeling like I’ve found my own home.

I’ve been in Nashville, Tennessee for three years now, and every day for the past month, I’ve been waking up feeling like this is where I belong.

I’ve always dreamed of New York City, but now I find comfort in these rolling hills and the big city that I still sometimes hate.

These past few days, I’ve been so happy coming home from either work or school and immediately making a cup of coffee and then reading. Either for school, or just for me, it doesn’t matter. I’m finally feeling like I’m where I need to be, and I’m so content with it.

Some may be rolling their eyes and saying, "Yeah you should feel at home, it is your home," but that’s the problem for me. Growing up in California, I never felt at home. The first two years in Tennessee, I never felt at home, and it killed me to wake up and wander around feeling lost with myself.

But now, I feel like I know not only who I am, but what I need to do from here on out. I finally have a plan for my life, and I know where I want to go, what I want to do, and that excites me.

It’s gotten to the point where I feel like I need to stay in Tennessee and start my life here. I’ve planned on either New York or Pennsylvania, but the more I think of it, the more I find myself falling in love with Tennessee. Only, I think the tornadoes will chase me out of the state sooner or later.

I made the leap of moving over halfway across the country from everyone I knew, and now here, I still don’t have that many friends. Even at my college, even living with three other girls, I still do feel alone most of the time. But if I can go outside and sit on my front porch and read with a cup of coffee, I feel like that’s all I need. A cat would be nice, but beggars can’t be choosers.

I wish I knew what it was that made this sudden change in my life. What flipped the switch from a wanderlust to wanting a home, and a future planted here. God knows with this weather it would grow.

I’d like to think it’s finding myself and growing into loving who I am.

I’d like to think it’s realizing the people I love won’t always be here, but there will always be someone for me to love.

Maybe it was realizing my purpose is to spread love in the odd ways that I do.

I don’t know what it was, and I don’t know if when I ever find out I’ll be happy with the reason.

All I know is that now, I’m waking up and smiling again. I don’t need medication to make me love myself, and I don’t need to be surrounded by people who don’t really love me.

All I need is to be content with myself, to find happiness in the little places and to continue falling in love with who I am and where I am in live.

I don’t miss the wanderlust. I don’t miss wanting to get in my car and just drive until I found some place that felt relatively like what could someday be a home.

I get to come home every night, and in my room I have my knick-knacks hung on my walls and the bouquet of flowers I continually buy for myself when I’ve had a good therapy session wait for me on my desk.

And then, I get to make myself a cup of coffee and grab a book.