Home Is Where the Bed Is

I’ve called many places home in my short 22 years. After moving to Florida from Michigan at the age of five, my parents continually rented houses. Growing up we spent our summers in Charlevoix, Michigan, and the school year in Naples, Florida. Luckily for me, after moving to Naples, we didn’t move cities again for seventeen years. The Florida houses were all in Naples during this time; I did not have to worry about changing school and making new friends. For 10 years we had the same summer house, then we decided to just do summer apartment rentals. In Florida, we would move rental houses every August. The routine usually went: August, move into new house, in June, board up the Florida house for hurricanes, pack for the summer, pack up the car, close the house, drive to Michigan, open the other house (or move stuff in from the storage unit); and in August close the summer house (or move back into storage), go back to Florida, open up the house, pack it all up, and move into another house.

Then one day Dad came home with the best news I had probably ever heard. I was about ten years old. We’d finally bought a house in Florida- no more yearly rentals. My parents had not owned a house since I was two years old. They’d finally done it. We were going to live in one place for a long time. We wouldn’t have to pack up so many times each year. I was allowed to paint my closet purple, put the little stars on my ceiling and put as many nails in the wall as mom would allow. I couldn’t believe the news.

I have lived in around 25 different homes now, but I can’t even recall them all any more (we only lived in the house we bought for five years). Yet I can only blame myself for a handful of the different homes; I happily went out of state for college, and eagerly went abroad for school twice. All of these occasions requiring more packing, more moving, more “homes.” I was encouraged to be independent, and grew up loving the idea of traveling and seeing the world. I was independent early on; I loved the privacy of my own room. The worst punishment my parents very gave me for misbehaving was taking the knob from my door so I could close the door to my private domain no longer. My older sister loved this; she would barge in, at random times, not only scaring the crap out of me, but invading my most sacred bubble. In this space, my favorite place has always been my bed. It has always provided me a sense of comfort I never fully understood.

Sitting on a bungalow porch on a beach in southern Thailand on study abroad, the student fellow for our program and I had a long chat about how you never really know “home” until you leave it. The conversation started about knowing the environmental situations, but as the sun set on the beach, we talked about what home means to us. This is when I began to realize that I could be at home anywhere in the world as long as I had a bed. The physical space did not matter. Home is where my heart is.

While one of my homes is always where my family is, I found that when I moved away to college, I needed to find a way to make my space my home so that I can find the security that comes with being “at home”. For many, this sense of comfort and relaxation is provided by the physical space of their house, I have found that sense in the space of my bed. When I lost the space of having my own room in college and travels, my bed began to signify my home space. A simple space of a bed provides me comfort, security, and relaxation. I love to curl up on my bed, and read, do my homework, or chat with my friends on the phone. I even sit on my bed with my laptop and wireless to do my best thinking. Bed signifies the opportunity to close my eyes on the problems of today and open your eyes again with a new opportunity for tomorrow. As an extremely vivid dreamer, bed provides an escape with from the realities of this world. Bed can be a place where I go to experience immense pleasure, or where I go when worn out from immeasurable pain. Through all these relocations, I have found that I can anywhere where my bed can be found, I willingly call “home.” I can quickly settle in, add touches of myself to the space, and it is home.

With my ability to make nearly any place my home, I have an advantage that allows me to adjust quickly in new situations. I am not afraid of going places alone, because I know I’ll be able to find home there as long as I have my bed. Now that I’m getting ready to start “my own life,” moving is something I think about a lot. Despite the fact that I can make many places home, I’m ready to move in June and stay put for more than one year.