I dealt with this issue very briefly when I first decided i wanted to buy a van and travel the country. Early on in the process, I worried “What if something happens and I need to get home?” Then I realized “You won’t HAVE a home!” because I am selling everything I own to buy the van. That put me in a bit of a panic. When I calmed down I thought “You will already BE home.” That was better, but still a bit difficult for me to swallow.
Over the months, I’ve settled into the belief that the world will be my home. Wherever I can drive, I can live there. Wherever I park, that will be my home for today. Sometimes that’s still a bit hard to wrap my brain around. And this week I was out with a friend and she too is changing up her living arrangements, moving (temporarily) to a very small apartment. She asked me “What is ‘Home” to you?” I explained my process of deciding that the world would be my home, but she pressed on. “What makes you FEEL “at home”?” I really had to give it some thought.
I think for me, home is my oasis. These days while I’m working nearly every day, and some days working too much, “home” means the place I go when I finish with my last client, where I can curl up on the sofa with Cosmo, and feel calm and content. It’s a place where I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. It’s where I eat. It’s where I sleep. It’s where I feel safe and protected from harm.
I also realized it has become a place where I can shut out parts of the world, like people who have expectations of me. Home is where I can take off my shirt if it’s hot and not worry that someone will judge me for having a pot belly. It’s where I can be myself, and do whatever I choose. That’s what “home” means to me.
Now it is time to integrate all that. Time for me to realize that the whole world is my home. I can go wherever I want, and curl up at the end of the day with Cosmo on the sofa or the bed (in my van, they will be one and the same). It’s where I can be myself and not worry that I’m being judged for who I am, how I look, or what I wear. I think one of the main goals of this journey is to recover those feelings I had in Ollaytantambo, Peru, where I felt that I was safe, secure, and loved, but most of all, where I felt “I Live Here!” I was home. I AM HOME!