Family Is Where the Home Is

Moving takes your life and shakes it around. It jumbles around the pieces inside until you are left lost and confused with how things have ended up. I had some moments where I was just confused towards the beginning of the month, especially around 4th of July where I just realized that I would miss holidays away from my friends and family in Long Beach. I had an amazing holiday spent with new friends from Arcata, but it was just not the same.

I booked a flight home for a one-way trip from San Francisco to Long Beach. I bought the ticket a couple days prior to leave me enough time to figure out how I would get to SF. I could get a direct flight from Arcata...but it is pretty pricey. I could drive to SF...but I didn't really want to. I found this girl Erin through Craigslist that was offering a ride through "rideshare." Its pretty much a part of the craigslist site where you can post if you are going somewhere and if you have a couple extra spots in your car to take people along. Call it modern-day hitch-hiking (which was my second option). We agreed I would pay her $40 for gas from Arcata to SF....so that part was set.

My flight was at 6:30PM on a Wednesday evening, so I had the whole day to get to the airport. Erin picked me up at my house @ 5am. She is also an HSU student and was pretty easy to converse with. She made me grab her itinerary paper which had a list of people she was picking up. She was driving down to Palm Springs and picking up more people. I saw her next stop was in Berkeley, so I told her she could drop me off there.

I LOVE the city of Berkeley. It is pretty much Arcata on a wider scale. I've always had this idea to crash a class...so I looked up what classes were happening at UC Berkeley. I decided on this Psychology of Sleep class, which was holding its second meet day and which was in a big lecture hall. I was trying to do my best not to stand out. Then again, I look like just another student.

I settle into a chair in this lecture hall, and I am intrigued by the very first word from this professor. UC Berkeley is known for using student teachers, and she was one. Even so, she knew how to teach. I was grasping onto every word...and would take that class in a heartbeat.

After about twenty minutes, all the sleep terms were starting to get to me. I didn't want to talk about sleep...I wanted to sleep! I stormed out of the class and walked onto this grassy quad area and found a tree to sleep under. I got a good thirty minute nap in. After that, I explored downtown and the areas around Berkeley. I got a wheatgrass shot and a veggie juice at this juice shop. I kept exploring and decided to get onto the BART.

I got off at the Embarcadero and explored. I walked around and just took everything in. I found a pizza shop and got a slice of cheese pizza and just sat and watched the world unravel before my eyes.

About thirty minutes or so, I make the decision to head to the airport via the nearby BART station. As I was at the airport and on the flight home, all I kept thinking about was what it was going to feel like once I walked back inside my "home."

A short ten minute drive later, we arrive at the front steps. I open up the door and walked inside. Something was different. It did not feel the same. It did not feel like home anymore. It just seemed like just another place...but it was not home. Well... "it was" home.

After spending a couple days back in Long Beach meeting up with friends and family...it started to feel like home. That's when I realized that home is not in any particular place. It is comprised of the people that are in your life. Family and friends are where "the home is."

Where you live will change multiple times throughout your life. You can make where you live very very comfortable to the point where you consider it as "home"....but really it is not what makes it up. It is the people that are in and around your home.

My new home is tucked away in a less-traveled part of Arcata that is a short walk away from Humboldt State. It is home because I have my friends and family supporting me every step of the way.