What Does Home Mean to You?

The Sanctuary Within

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What does home mean to you?

If I had been asked that question years ago, my answer would have been very different from the one I’d give today. Some people think of home as a place. It’s the home they return to at the end of a long day, where warmth, comfort, and familiarity greet them at the door.

Group of women gathered together at an event

Others think of home as people. Not necessarily family, but those who love, support, and nurture them. The people who provide safety from the harshness of the world and remind them they don’t have to face life alone. Still others define home as family itself. Mothers and fathers. Brothers and sisters. Spouses, children, and lifelong friends. The people with whom they share the deepest connections.

Many of us are fortunate enough to include all of those things in our definition of home. But I see home a little differently. Home, to me, is where my soul lives.

What is the soul?

For me, the soul is the deepest and truest part of who we are.

It is the quiet center beneath our thoughts, emotions, accomplishments, disappointments, and fears.

It is untouched by titles, possessions, or the opinions of others.

It’s the essence of our being, the place where peace resides if we’re willing to become still enough to find it.

These avatars, we call our bodies, experience everything this life throws at us. They carry stress, trauma, disappointment, grief, illness, joy, and celebration. They remember heartbreak. They absorb worry. They become weary from simply living.

Our minds can become just as exhausted. They replay old conversations, anticipate future problems, and try to make sense of a world that often feels overwhelming.

Photo by Ato Aikins on Unsplash

But the soul…

The soul remains steady.

When life becomes too loud, I know exactly where to go. I go home.

Not to a building.

Not to a neighborhood.

Not even to another person.

I go inward.

Deep within my soul, I find sanctuary. I find safety. I find protection. I find the quiet that allows me to catch my breath before stepping back into the world again. It is there that I remember who I am beyond what has happened to me.

I’ve come to believe that people can take many things from us. They can wound us, disappoint us, misunderstand us, betray us, and leave us carrying scars we never expected to have.

But no one can take your soul.

No one can destroy it.

No one can evict you from it.

No one can disrupt its sacredness unless you hand them the key.

Your soul belongs to you and to you alone.

Perhaps that’s why, after all these years, my definition of home has changed. Homes can be sold. Families can change. Friendships can fade. People come and go.

The soul remains.

It patiently waits for us to return whenever we’ve wandered too far from ourselves. So, when someone asks me what home means, my answer is simple.

Home is where my soul lives.

And the beautiful thing about that kind of home is that no matter where life takes me, I never have to travel very far to get there.

Thank you, Arpita Srivastava, for this writing challenge.

This piece was written as part of the Writing Challenge: “What Does Home Mean to You?”

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