Belonging

     I don't belong anywhere. It's something I've grown to live with over the years. I don't get that feeling of security, even if I'm at home. Some of that may be because I shared my room with the food storage, so I knew that anyone could wander in at any time and the best I could do was throw noodles at them. Even so, small comfort.

     I've been thinking about belonging more in college because I've got nowhere now. Before, I had a few spots spread throughout the open space we lived near. If I needed a break, I'd find a bench and watch the moon for a while. That's not enough here. It's never dark enough and outside has too many people.

     There's ways of looking at the idea of home. The most common is probably "Home is where the heart is." That doesn't work as well as people tend to think it does. Specifically, your heart can be stolen- by a friend, romantic interest, or someone you know you can't be with. If your heart's your home and its been stolen, you'll always feel slightly out of place. You'll think about where you'd rather be and who you'd rather be with all the livelong day, and there's no good way to steal your heart back again. Your heart can also be damaged- the passing of a loved one, a breakup, addiction- and then you'll have nowhere that's quite home to you. It heals, but it takes time, and a home built on the heart didn't have the stability I wanted.

     In the Old World, I made home a place. There were a couple of benches, a spot on the roof of the church, a fallen tree over a pond, and a concrete riverbed that I could really feel at home. Those places were mine. They were wild but hospitable, and I felt more at home there than I did lying in my bed.

     That doesn't work as well here. It's never dark and I've been having trouble finding places close enough to go to to think but far enough away from everything to feel alone, all of which I need. My room has a person in it, who I tend to like, but it's still not really mine. A place that you can never feel alone in is never really yours, and you can't feel alone in a place until you don't have to worry about people walking in on you.

     It is possible to make home a person. Don't.

     I may have missed another option, but the way I see it, I was left with one choice: Home as an object. I've got a set of bracelets for ideas like this, but I didn't want something to carry with me. I wanted something to return to. Something stable. Something solid. Something safe.

     Home is where the sourdough is.

     Think about it. It's something to return to. It's something wholly mine. It's something no one else will learn how to use unless I choose to let them, and if it dies, I can make another. It has upkeep, but something to draw you home's not a bad idea. And I can carry it wherever I go, just so long as I can feed it every twelve hours.

     It's not as stable as I'd like, but I can live with instability for a few years. And it's mine. That'll be enough.