Home to me...

It's Dialogue Friday over on Create A Connection!

Just what is Home to me? I use the word a lot when referring to my apartment or where I grew up. My parents are obviously home to me, but I don't live there. My apartment is definitely home to me, but I'm still putting down roots. So where is this elusive home place anyhow?

I'm going "home" to Florida tomorrow for a week. It's in quotes since it isn't truly my home. My home is now North Carolina and will never be Florida again. My parents are still in Miami, brothers in Miami and Hollywood, best friend in Jacksonville, tons of wonderful friends in Gainesville. But yet, I will never live in FL again if I have my choice. I have continually moved north ever since college and finally left FL altogether last year. Now to just get my parents to finalize their move to GA or NC and I will never have obligations to go to South FL again!

"Home" is where my family is. Where my heart is. Where my dogs are. Where I grew up and lived. But on that note, the home I grew up in no longer exists. My parents sold that house about 5 years ago. Now all I have of the "home" from my childhood and teenage years are pictures and memories.

For a month every summer for 8 years, home was summer camp in the Blue Ridge mountains of GA. It became home for 10 weeks the summer I was 19 also.

For 3 years, it was my own house in Gainesville during college. Gainesville always felt like home to me during my college years and again when I moved back there. I have a connection there with all the Gators, with the town, the university, the football stadium. ;-)

I am a nomad and have lived in many different apartments in Miami, Orlando and Gainesville and never for more then a year at a time.


I am 30 and it is finally time to put down roots. Last July I moved to NC and it was one of the scariest, most exhilarating things I have ever done. I knew no one up here. I had 1 friend and he lived 2+ hours away and I never saw him again after I moved here. Home is now where I live and go to school. Where my expanding circle of friends now live. Where I have made great friends, and experienced heartaches. Home is my adorable apartment that I re-signed a lease on. For the 1st time in my life, I will be staying in an apartment for more than 1 year. Also scary, also exhilerating, also very exciting.

Home to me is anywhere that people I love are. That's the bottom line. When my parents move, that will also be "home" for me.