Home

Merriam-Webster defines “home” as “one’s place of residence” and, by that definition, Ohio is my home. I live here. My husband and kids live here. We are “a family living together in one building.” We are at home in Ohio. However, while the definition of home is our place of residence, sometimes our heart can tell a conflicting story. After all, “home is where the heart is” and part of my heart will always be in New England.

My kids and I drove back to Connecticut for a few days over my daughter’s winter break from school. We drove across a bit of Pennsylvania, through New York and Massachusetts, and finally into Connecticut. It took us nine hours and the closer we got to Connecticut the more we felt at home. My daughter summed it up halfway through New York when she looked out the car window at the tree-covered hills looming in front of us and announced that “it just looks right.” She was correct. This is the countryside that is built into our concept of home. There are a lot of trees. The land doesn’t just roll a little; it looms up in hills and then slides down into valleys. The woods are filled with old stones walls that delineate farms and fields of the past. The roads curve and meander around the hills instead of going in a straight line. Small towns, clustered on the side of the road, are filled with two-story wooden houses, white New England churches, and, on the outskirts, red barns. Some of the towns are run-down and some are stereotypically pretty. It is familiar. Comfortable. Home.

When we arrive in Connecticut we visit family we haven’t seen in months. My 96-year-old grandmother, a beloved aunt and uncle, siblings, parents. We slip back into life as it was before we moved, picking up the strands of relationships exactly where we left them. We tell stories about our new life and get caught up on what we have missed. We visit old friends we have known for years and do the same thing. We drive down familiar roads and shop in familiar stores.

We are caught between two worlds though because, as familiar and home-like as Connecticut is, it isn’t our only home now and isn’t even the only home we like. My husband is waiting for us back in Ohio and without him, no place is completely home. We have started to put down roots in our new location–some of us fighting it tooth and nail. There are things we like and places we would miss if we left for good. But roots take time to grow and ours are still shallow. They aren’t yet fully rooted in the gently rolling landscape of Ohio and that is okay. That will come. Or it won’t. Who knows where we will be living five years from now. Our kids will be grown and on their own. Maybe we will have moved on by then.

The thing to remember is that yes, home is the place of one’s residence. And yes, home is where the heart is. And also yes, sometimes a certain type of countryside just feels like home. And finally, sometimes the people who make your home do not cooperate by all living in the same location. Life is messy and chaotic and home is a messy and chaotic concept.

Home can be where I am and where I came from.