Home Sweet Home

So I decided on "home" to be my topic. (thanks to whoever commented and gave me the idea!) I just got done writing it so I haven't done any tweaking or anything so I may change it later.. but here it is!

Home Sweet Home

Where do you call home? To some it might be the place where you are living now. A place that is always there for you to go to, to sleep, socialize and to shelter you. For others, their home is the place where they grew up, whether it be there house, their state or their country. Some people consider home the place where their loved ones are, it doesn’t matter where it is, as long as they are surrounded by family. Still others, when asked provide a place like a church or other place where they feel comfortable and safe as their home. In the dictionary the definition for home is “any place of residence or refuge.” In this paper I’ll explore the many meanings of the word home.
Home is where the heart is. This means that your home is with the person or in the place you love most. I love this quote, because it has a big meaning in my life. My home, is the house I live in now. This house, was built **** years ago by my great-great grandfather. This house, will always be my true home, for it is where my heart is. I love this house because if you lay really quiet you can hear its heartbeat. The heartbeat of love and hard work from my family that lived here before I did. It gives me comfort to know that when I touch any of the walls or doors that my family that I love so much touched them before me. Home is definitely where the heart is, especially when your home has a heartbeat of it’s own.
“Home is place you grow up wanting to leave and grow old wanting to come back to.” These words by John Ed Pierce are very true. As a child and teenager you grow up dreaming of the time you can get out on your own. But the longer you’re away from home, the more you begin to realize what you had there. Home is somewhere you will always be welcomed and loved. As these teenagers grow up to be adults this quote holds true. But in my opinion, it doesn’t mean what it seems to mean. Though it may hold some truth to it, the home that he describes wanting to go back to may not be the home that he grew up in. It may be the home he will make, for his own family that is modeled after the home of his childhood.
The word home doesn’t always mean the place where you live. To many, it’s with the people you live with which is what makes it home. Nancy Reagan said, “I have been very happy with my homes, but homes are no more than the people who live in them. For example, after Hurricane Katrina many, many people had to leave their homes in New Orleans and find new places to live. This was very hard on all of them, considering New Orleans is their hometown. But these people agree that as long as they still have their families, they can find a new home because what makes it home, is the people who live with them.
Home may not be where you live, but where they understand you. For some, the meaning of home has no connection to where they live or grew up. It may be a place like a church, building or even park where you feel comfortable and at peace. A place that you can be yourself and not worry about what others think. A place where you can relax and know that you will be safe or a place that holds many memories. I know someone whose home is in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. This place, where he spent a lot of time in his childhood is where he feels at home because of the memories he has there. Colorado will always hold a place in his heart because of the many memories that were made and that are still being made. I also know someone whose home is in the fields of Iowa where he plants, nurtures and harvests his crops. This is where he grew up and spent all of his life. Since he was young, this has been his job, his passion and his home.
Home is a shelter from storms, all sorts of storms. People go back home for comfort, for refuge from life’s many trials. This is because home is the first place they were comforted, the first place they felt safe. This is why when an adult has no place to go, they end up where they grew up. A place where they can get back on their feet and back into their lives again. John Denver’s song “Take Me Home Country Roads” portrays the real meaning of home. The lyrics, “Almost heaven, West Virginia” and “Take me Home, country roads, to the place, I belong…” portrays the passion he has for his home, his state and everything that comes with it.
Harriet Breecher Stowe once said, “Home is a place not only of strong affections, but of entire unreserved; it is life’s dress rehearsal, its backroom, it’s dressing room.” Home is where you become yourself. The person you will be for the rest of your life. It is who you are, what you are and who you will be. It will always be a part of you.
I think that Frederick Robertson sums up the meaning of home in this one quote, “Home is the one place in all this world where hearts of sure of each other. It is a place of confidence. It is the place where you can tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defense, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ridicule.” So wherever your home may be, let it be “Home Sweet Home.”