Homey Thoughts

As a traveler, I'm not surprised to find myself processing the concept of "home" lately. It's a topic that I've processed nearly non-stop since I moved to Oregon in 2001, but I have deeper thoughts now. So let's see if I can put them into words.

We've all heard, "Home is where the heart is," "Home is where you hang your hat," "Home is with your loved ones." None of these are wrong, but none of them encapsulates every aspect of home for me. With that in mind, I have broken down my processing into two parts: my concept(s) of home, and other people's expectations of my concept(s) of home.

My concept(s) of home:
Home is hard to define, but for the purposes of this section, it is a place where I can be completely myself and (mostly) not feel like a foreigner.

It's probably obvious to most people who know me, but home is not just one place. I can be "at home" in just about every place I've lived, and in some places I haven't. I can feel "like this is home" in a church, at a friend's house, or in a place of work. I feel equally home in Southern California and in Oklahoma. In the Filipino church where I was raised and in my dad's current church. At my college job in Plant Services and in my post-college job in Australia. Even now, after years away from some of those places/people, I know that a significant piece of me would be home there, were I to walk in the door tomorrow.

But for me, having lived and given of myself to many, many places and people, I can never feel completely home in any one place or with any one group of people. When I leave a piece of myself behind somewhere (or with someone), I know that that piece of me will ever only be at home at that place or with that person. Part of me is sad that I cannot gather up all of those pieces of myself again. But the other part of me doesn't regret for a moment any of my life and love decisions. The thing that is so appealing about heaven is that my entire self will be at home (with Jesus, no less!).

In my current Location Independent life/work situation, home has two immediate, practical meanings:
1. It's easy for me to call my hotel room "home" because that's where my stuff is.
2. But I learned in 2011 that I can live anywhere and put up with almost anything if I'm with my family. I have no particular love for Minnesota, but "going home for Christmas" meant being in the midst of my crazy, big, loud family; snuggling with any sister or brother at any time; talking to my mom in person and being interrupted every three seconds; speed-talking and having people understand me; reading a book in a comfy seat while the chaos around me faded and I lost myself in the pages. I didn't go home to Minnesota - I went home to my family where I could be completely myself and not feel like a foreigner.

The way I live (half-in, half-out of my car; not knowing where I'm going to be from month to month)...well, it just seems right to me. It wouldn't have been right at other times in my life, and it will probably get old at some point. But for now, I'm perfectly happy - and I mean, really, really happy - to have my current life. I feel like I was born for it, and all my previous life experiences have led to it.

But over 99% of the people I interact with have never experienced this lifestyle and probably never will. That's where the second part of my processing comes in.

Other people's expectations of my concept(s) of home:
As a working, responsible citizen of the United States, I am expected to have a "home address." I don't. People had to send my Christmas presents to my family's MN home. I can't order anything from eBay or Amazon because I don't know if I'll still be living in the same hotel or the same room when it's delivered. My DL says MN, but I have bank accounts in two different states and coffee punch cards for at least four in my wallet.

As a traveler, I get asked all the time, "where's home for you?" It's a fair question, I guess, but I don't have a one-word answer. On the first day of my new job assignment, I had a conversation much like this with the lady who was processing my I-9:
her: Where are you from?
me: Most recently, from Missouri.
her: Oh, your Driver's license says Minnesota.
me: Yeah, that's where my parents live.
her: Your Social Security number - where's that from? Like, where were you born?
me: Dallas, TX
her: Ah, so that's where you were raised?
me: No, I grew up in Southern California.

Yes, when I say "I'm from everywhere," I really mean that. But most people have no concept of that, unless they're from a military family or something.

I wish I had an alternative to the question, "where is home for you?" and its equally frustrating twin, "where are you from?" I wish it weren't the opener question for get-to-know-you conversations. I'm perfectly okay with having a complicated and/or ambiguous answer, but I am a bit tired of everyone's confused looks and are-you-crazy attitudes.

I recently read the following article: 17 Location Independent Entrepreneurs Define “Home”. I was struck by how many of the 17 entrepreneurs said something like, "Wherever I have my backpack and a wi-fi connection, I'm home." While I have not gotten to where I can live out of a backpack (hey, this girl has to have her hair products and make-up kit), I do resonate with the idea that an Internet connection is all that's needed to be "home."

I will never, ever be physically present with everyone I love, all at once. So I might as well be away from them somewhere cool that has excellent wi-fi.

I love my life.