Home.. or lack thereof...

Home... It’s such a commonly used word. I wonder how many people realize that some people don’t have homes. The ones you would least expect to be homeless are in fact just that: homeless. I am one such person. I have no home. Homes are where you find compassion, unconditional love and acceptance, comfort, and security. The only place I can find those things is in the arms of my family, but that is a rare thing now that we are literally scattered all over the globe. My idea of a home, a physical place that I could always fall back on and know full well that I would be safe there and that I would have nothing to fear, shattered when I was nine.
My dad told us that we would be moving after this next furlough, and I burst into tears. I had moved before from Malaybalay to the States and back, but this time we would not return to Mindanao even. I was crushed. My eyes started filling and overflowing with tears until even my shirt collar was soaked. “Not come back home? Where will we go then?” I asked. “To Tacloban, Mel, on the island of Leyte,” my dad said. I had never heard of that place before, but even if I had, it might as well of been Jupiter or Neptune.
Ever since that day I have not had a home. I tried to explain my lack of home as being more like a movable home… Like one I carried around in a pocket or in a bag. I kept mine in my room. Wherever I went when I didn’t want to be around people was my home. Usually, it was my bedroom with all my books, teddy bears, and pillows were. It was my refuge, my sanctuary. I could be completely alone in my room and be content, because I was home. It held comfort for me.
In high school, my home was my dorm room, not the actual dorm. The rest of the dorm might as well as not existed – it meant that little to me and held that little comfort. When I went “home” for break, it was almost home. Most of my things were in my dorm room, so my room at my parent’s house was rather bare. But my family was there, with their open arms of love and kind words and compassion. That more than made up for any of my belongings that I had used for comfort.
As I reflect, I realize that my belongings only made my room my “home” because my belongings brought with them memories of my family and the home that I would always have in their arms and hearts.
They say home is where the heart is, but the heart can be in many places. The point of a home is a point to fall back to – a refuge or sanctuary where you can find assurance and love and safety and comfort and acceptance. A home is supposed to be a single place that didn’t move around, but will always be there for you, not move around from place to place.
As a Daughter of the King, I realize that I am a stranger in this world, and that I will never truly feel at home until I am in heaven with my Father. My nine-year-old self could understand what all that means, but as I am right now, eighteen-years-old and having moved back and forth from “home” to “home” for the past 5 years, I cannot wrap my mind around heaven as my true Home. Such a thing does not exist for me. I am a vagabond. I truly desire to have that true Home, and all that it entails, but until that time I am destined, like many others, to roam this earth until I die.