What Does Home Mean to You?
No one warned me that leaving would feel like grief.
What Does Home Mean to You?
No one warned me that leaving would feel like grief.
Photo from Lisa Raffoul @ https://lisaraffoul.ca
Leaving
I’m at that age where I will be leaving the childhood home soon — the first one to do it. We were never raised with rules about what stage of life to fit into, just a lot of freedom to figure it out as we went.
I’ve never stopped watching kids' movies — at first for my own childhood, and then for the others’. I’m at that stage of life where I can’t watch Toy Story 3 anymore; Andy packing for college, leaving his family– yeah, that’s going to be me. The feeling is so scary. I’m getting older.
I look forward to building a life with my partner. I’m going to leave this crazy, full house and go live life as an actual person. No more being the parent or the one in charge. I’m going to be one of two people building something new. And we’ll have this life together. It’s as exciting as it is terrifying.
Sometimes, I get stuck in my head when we’re talking about the future. Especially on nights when I’m lying with younger siblings piled on top of me as they fall asleep, texting about life plans with the person I love. Even simple things, like getting married, moving in together, or life a few years down the road, can make my whole body panic.
It often forms like “How am I supposed to leave these kids for anything?” The thing is, I’d leave home eventually, one way or another. It’s usually just part of growing up.
What Home Means?
Isn’t it strange how we start with a home — where we’re raised, where we grow up? And sometimes, we get to fall in love. We spend more time with this new home, slowly shifting away from the family we grew up with. It’s the process of growing up; moving out, moving on. But I know that I’ll always have two homes. It doesn’t matter if the first one is chaos — it’s still my home, even when I leave it.
Home is the place where you can be yourself…so what happens when you grow up and realize you need to get out? When do the people who raised you stop being the people who know you best as your true self?
When you change your emergency contact from your mom to the one you’re in love with, you know there’s been a shift in life.
What is my home? Instantly, I think of that chaotic place full of siblings and parents who all care so much about each other.
The routines we built: bedtime every night, trips we took together, the day-to-day of being a big family under one roof. There is a lot of love, even when it’s loud, even when life isn’t perfect. With that many people, each with their own opinions, there were more than a fair share of disagreements — from the grown-ups arguing down to the youngest ones pulling hair. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
The piles of clothes, passed down and reworn by each child. Food cooking on the stove. Kids screaming with delight. If you live somewhere long enough, you learn about the creaks in the floorboards, the wobbly leg on the table, the hidden stains on the sofa cushions.
With my home, I can tell each person by their footsteps. Something that carries so little detail of each person, yet takes up so much space in my head.
If it’s dad — unhurried, flat steps — quickly stop wasting your brain on doomscrolling. If it’s tiny feet running, make sure you’re ready for their chaos. Or the child who insists on each step slapping the floor as loud as possible. Simple patterns that exist as proof of your connection.
The sound of someone looking for the tape we just refilled. The pile of shoes by the back door that no one ever bothers to tidy. Laughter spilling in from another room, each person with their own sounds. The rainbow of different toothbrushes all together in the bathroom — you’ve got to hope no one has used yours again.
Why would I leave those people I grew up with?
The People Who Made It Home
One of my siblings and I have always been a strange balance of each other’s biggest supporter and biggest hater — raised close enough in stage that we hit every milestone almost side by side.
They’re in no rush to grow up, while I’m always in a hurry to do more, so our paths keep overlapping anyway. I act like the responsible one, but they’re still the ones I go to when I need to talk through “adult stuff.”
Another sibling has been my best friend since day one.
We’ve shared a room, built entire secret worlds together, had more “excited conversations that sound like fighting to anyone else listening” than I can count.
We’ve never been apart for more than a few weeks. Watching them start to build a life of their own already stings a little — I can’t imagine what it’ll be like once I’m the one who’s just a guest in the house.
The youngest ones make me the saddest to think about. From the second I get home from work, they’ll launch themselves at me and will follow me around the house until it’s night. With each, there’s this deep bond because I was often left in charge of them as they’ve grown up. We’ll all be in the same room for hours, and they’re excitedly talking over each other just to tell me the things they did that day.
Each pair of people in the family has a different dynamic. I grew up the fastest and quickly became the free babysitter, so a lot of my connections here carry that parenting kind of vibe. I’m going to be the first to leave the house. I will never have to experience a sibling leaving, but each of them will, more and more, until there’s one left with everyone else having gone.
What’s Left Behind
As the house empties, my parents will become their own people again too. Siblings are your closest childhood companions. Your parents build a life around you — they spend eighteen-plus years raising this selection of people, just to have them grow up and leave to live their own lives.
These people you used to call for anything become the people you call on birthdays and major holidays.
My parents are going to go back to my childhood home one day and realize: that’s it. Mom and dad. The full house — everyone who currently lives there has already arrived. It will never be the same as it was.
What Home Really Is
I can’t listen to “The House That Built Me” without crying. She goes back to her childhood house because she needs to remember where she came from, even after having moved out long ago.
Maybe that’s what home is. Not a place we get to keep forever, but a place that gives us something we carry when we leave.
One day, I’ll be a guest, knocking on the door of the house I grew up in. Even when I can’t bring myself to take the old key from my keyring, this isn’t my place anymore.
This piece was written as part of the Writing Challenge: “What Does Home Mean to You?”
Explore the journeys of the writers who participated in this challenge.
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