A Traveler’s Meaning of “Home”

For more than a decade, I have said that “home is where the toothbrush is.” I even have a hashtag for it on Instagram. It is my light-hearted (if you will) twist on the widely-accepted idea that the heart (read: love) has something to do with “home.”

I am actually fascinated by this idea, it has a complex beauty about it. I just never thought it was for me.

“Home is where the heart is” is something written in pretty cursive on an Etsy piece of wall art hanging in a Pinterest-perfect house I don’t own, surrounded by a family I don’t have. It is simultaneously sappy and mushy, yet belonging and grounding, and… probably supported by a 401k.

I am a traveler, and I’m usually solo. How can a person who has left pieces of her heart in so many places and with so many people ever feel whole and at “home” while alone on the road?

Yet at the same time, I have been traveling long-term internationally for nearly half my life. Why wouldn’t the familiar foreignness of the road feel like home to me?

I am an outsider. I move around too much. I have left behind everything I’ve ever loved, and I continue to do so on a regular basis. “Grounded” is what I am not. A “home” body is what I am not.

Yet, to crave the feeling of “home” and belonging is inherently human. Is there any hope for someone like me?

Where the Heart Is

My main misalignment with this old adage has been the matter of heart. The truth is, I am not sure I ever really understood “love” which is THE matter of heart.

Love, and this sappy proverb, was always for other people. People who live surrounded by those they share love with, and that must be home. Good for them, I’ll just go get on a plane with my backpack (and toothbrush).

I have struggled to find my place in love in the past, but I have also learned a lot about it and come to see it in a different light since I started my nomadic travels, especially as it pertains to loving myself.

I don’t believe we can wrap our minds around the power and capabilities of the heart.

That’s why I am choosing to change my perspective. Rather than leaving pieces of my heart with people and places all over the world, I believe I’ve been enriched, made even more whole, by gaining pieces of love from these people and places all over the world.

In the end, these very experiences make up who I am, at heart. If this is true, how can I possibly have left them behind?

What is “Home”Anyway?

Home is not a place. I would say it’s a mindset, but it’s not that either, because if there is one thing I’ve learned in the past two years, it’s that our minds and our hearts don’t always agree.

Home is a heartset. It lives in emotion, not logic. It lives in energy, not geography.

Home is when everything around you rises up to meet you exactly where you are, in a whole, familiar, ethereal embrace.

Home feels like there is nowhere else in the world you’d rather be, and that is the single best feeling in the world, especially for a constant traveler.

In my experience, I’ve learned to recognize these moments by an overwhelming sense of gratitude, which usually gives me pause. This is even noticeable to others. One friend has named these my “Jackie moments,” and those very moments are what I’ve come to understand as “home” to me. They are inspired by pure gratitude and peace.

The surprising part about home is that as much as it exists in the familiar, it can also exist in places, people, and activities that are new to us. Which means, home doesn’t have to be something we leave behind.

I have felt as much at home on the shores of Lake Ohrid in Macedonia as I have on the shores of Lake Tahoe in California, where I was born and raised. I have felt it in the curious familiarity of a stranger as much as with my best friend of 20+ years.

The way I understand it now, the best thing we can do to feel home is to deeply know, love and be at peace with ourselves, so that we can be open to letting home meet us wherever we are. This can ground us at any given point on our path, whether we happen to have four walls and a family or a backpack and solitude.

Perspective Is Everything

The physical things of so-called “home” change anyway.

My family looks different today than it did three years ago. The people are different, some new, some moved on, all of our beloved animals are now gone, the geographical locations have changed. Houses, relationships, traditions… many of these things have changed in a very short time. This is challenging for the heart.

If I looked for “home” in something so fleeting as four walls, or the presence of this person or that dog, I completely understand how that would be heart-breaking and why counting on my toothbrush to always be there for me would be much easier, much safer.

Gratefully, home is not a matter of walls or 401ks. It is a matter of heart, and the heart is transcendental. It is capable of recognizing and embracing and carrying what is most important to us to feel whole, to feel like us. It knows no geography, time, or distance, which is good news for everyone, especially a traveler.

With this perspective, I feel as entitled as anyone else to claim that I am home on my path, even though my home doesn’t have a physical address. And I will gratefully continue to add pieces to my heart, as long as it feels like home, toothbrush in tow.

To be continued…

What is home to you? I’m curious about what your opinions are, or if you even think about defining it. Please leave a comment below and share.