My room back home hasn't changed much as I've gotten older. It's still decorated like it was when I was kid. The differences are more in what I bring to it. Now there's a guitar that I'm slowly learning to play. There are different pictures of different friends, new books on the bookshelf. There's a framed picture of my college's main building hanging over my bed.
My house is much the same. My parents and brother are still here, a constant. My dog still runs as fast as she can when I open the back door. In this town, my old friends are still friends, and some new ones have wandered in and out. I still call the church I grew up in "my home church."
But even though very little has changed about this town, this house, the people-- it feels different each time I find my way back. Like perhaps this town isn't always going to be my home.
My first year of college, my mother was incredibly affronted the first time I called my dorm "home." She still gets antsy when I refer to my school as "home." But then,
it's not exactly home either.
I'm coming to terms with this, that I've hit the period of my life that's almost "homeless." I'm in a transition time-- home isn't quite home though my family hasn't changed. School isn't home, though I sometimes call it that. These next few years, I'll be finding "home." I'll graduate in two years, and odds are, I'll still be planning my own days as a single woman. I'll go to grad school, and then it will really be time to go home. Wherever God puts me, that is. My hometown, or maybe on the other side of the state.
Home isn't necessarily where my parents are or where my friends are. We live in the twentieth century--they can call. They can visit. Home for me might not be chosen in conjunction with a husband... though, if I'm being honest, I hope that's the case. Home isn't just where the job is. I'm not sure where my home will be in five years. I'm not incredibly sure where it is now, since the idea is changing.
All I know for sure is that home is where God puts me. And right now he has me here. And as someone once said, "there's no place like home." ;-)
