What is Home?

What is home? I looked up its definition and this was the first description that came up. 

“The place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.” 

I guess if one were to think home is where you would live “permanently”, you would need to feel complete comfort and happiness. When I say complete, I mean not fleeting, like you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Contentment. This is something I haven’t felt in a very long time. I can honestly say the last time I felt like I was home, was when I lived with my parents. Because “Home is where the heart is” right?

I have shared living spaces in the past and for a very long time I lived alone. Living alone was something I just got used to over the years and I just became comfortable doing things on my own. However, none of the places I have ever lived felt “lifelong”.

I was neither in love with where I lived nor hated it. I was just alright being where I was. Nowhere I have lived before felt permanent to me and I rarely felt loss when I moved to a new place. Not being attached to a place was working for me at the time.

I was okay being independent and taking care of things on my own. That was life to me. But, I always felt like something was missing, like a piece of the puzzle in my life was absent. No one should just be okay or just alright. I was happy on my own but I could have been better. Life is too short for anything less than absolute happiness.

My long term relationships had their great moments and more often, moments that were not so great, but overall there was always something lacking. I never felt like anyone was permanent and a lot of my relationships felt forced in a way. Of course I have loved before, I’ve definitely lost, but that feeling of contentment and permanency was something foreign to me. Maybe that is the difference between loving and being in love with someone. 

Most of my relationships were based more on trying to make it work and less on fate. Like taping two puzzle pieces together from two different puzzles. They all felt breakable and at some point, I realized that I was inevitably forcing something that would never work out in the end. I was just wasting time. Although I have learned so much through my relationships, I regret the time and energy wasted on them. But I do believe that things happen for a reason.

I cut all ties with people who were no good for me and ended up thinking that love was just a fleeting emotion. I never felt that kind of love that makes you want to stay. 

Then this happens... 

I still remember the day we met at Mavi’s in Fort Lee. I didn’t know what to expect. I was just hoping you were who you said you were and our first meeting wouldn’t leave me feeling like the rest of them, like I was wasting my time. I was immediately drawn to your photos and our brief conversation through text had me intrigued. I felt an incredible urge to meet you and learn more about you.

I saw you standing there and you turned around to greet me. I will never forget the way you looked at me as I walked towards you. It was a look that made me feel special and instantly filled my heart. I mean, I know love grows over time and over the few months after this meeting there was a constant battle of my mind trying to make sense of what my heart already knew. It was my mind getting in the way of fully accepting the idea that I was falling. Oh, I was falling HARD. But that very first moment I saw you, my heart already began to beat differently. I never did believe in love at first site, but I think I do now. 

We ordered coffee and sat at a table to talk. The flutters in my stomach weren’t those normal butterflies you feel when you like someone. This was completely different. These butterflies weren’t just fluttering, they were performing extensive choreographed pieces to the type of music that just seems to soothe your soul. I was immediately smitten but also so comfortable with you and you did just that, you soothed my soul. Even though the stomach flutters were never ending, I did feel this overall calm surround us. And when I looked into your eyes, I felt like we had known each other for much longer. It felt like it was just you and me in the cafe. I felt a comfort I only feel when I am with those that I care about, like my closest friends and family. I felt like at that moment, that was where I was supposed to be, where we were supposed to be, with each other. The more we sat there, talked and learned a little about one another, something was tugging at my heart. 

That feeling you get when you are with someone and everything else going on around you becomes non-existent, it’s just you two that matters in that moment, that was what was happening. I was feeling something that you feel only during special moments. You know those moments like that of your first kiss, or when you win something big, or when you realize you are falling in love. And there I was, realizing that you were going to be in my life for a very long time, if not forever. I truly believe that our souls were meant to meet, to connect. Like they were meant to find each other. 

You walked me to my car to say good-bye and I didn’t want the day to end. I just wanted more of you and to learn more of you. But I felt a calm in my heart knowing that this wouldn’t be the last time we would see each other and knowing that made me so excited. 

This was the day that I discovered what I was missing in my life. Home. And you felt like home to me. 

And even though this idea of building and creating together has a long way to go, this is the impact you had on me the first time we met.

There it is, you had my heart from day one.