‘Home’, a place of peace and comfort; a place where one belongs and owns it. One doesn’t feel like an outsider when they are in their home. After all, it consists of people, the atmosphere, the environment, and materials. It is a place that exists on the physical landscape but at the same time is very abstract. It is also an idea of the utopia that we often create in our minds. Thus, here we discuss today, the ‘actual home’ which is not just sweet and comfy all the time but thorny, bushy, and pushy too.
Where Is A Home?
In the simplest terms, it is where one has spent their childhood, early lives, or the longest span of their lives. It is somewhere you return from faraway tours and trips and is on your permanent address. When one is at home, they experience a plethora of feelings and emotions ranging from happy to sad, good to bad, and sane to mad. All these feelings and emotions combine to create a structure of the home.
It is above everything, the baggage of memories that make us rethink a place that we cherish being called ‘homely feelings’. These may be the afternoon naps after coming from school, the Sunday mornings with special brunch in the kitchen, the rainy evenings, and the winter nights. All these seasons are best associated with the food we ate, the costume we wore, the activities we did, and the memories we created. Now when one steps outside their home, they assume a space that does not reflect their own individuality, their comfort, and their memories, thus we tend to idealize home.
Sugar And Spice
We idealize it as a place of peace and comfort. The place where we eat good food, have memories and family, and spend a good time with them. Our consciousness somewhat avoids the ups and downs that are very normal in a home. We try to ignore the fact that it is also a place for heated conversations, restrictions, and rebels. A space where one’s identity is not independent but is a tail identity from the head of the family.
At times it’s a boundary or limitation resisting one from seeing the world outside, getting exposure, and developing a new lifestyle. People often say, in order to be a part of the world today, it’s important to leave roots and cross the boundaries of the buddle environment that has been there throughout one’s childhood. Thus, leaving home becomes important because life is not a bed of roses and without any push, one may not grow in a better way.
A Home Is A Person
Romanticizing the notion, we call our beloved ‘home’. A person could be home too, in an abstract sense a person and their aura can comfort oneself to be called so. When a person provides you with care, hospitality, happiness, and comfort and makes you feel like you belong to the place, the person becomes ‘home’. It is a fantastic way of acknowledging the love as one’s identity remains the same, their individuality is not snatched, they have the freedom to choose with no limitations and boundaries and yet the idea of care and comfort remains.
Accepting The Home As It Is
It is a place of sugar and spice and everything nice. Once one is out of their home, they tend to realize its importance as it is a place of belonging, and where you belong is where you be happy and fight your evil.
Also Read: AN EMPTY HOUSE
Shruti is a student of social sciences, doing her majors in geography. Her interest areas are urban, social and cultural geography and planning. She tries to see the world through a societal perspective where emotions and behaviours play major roles. She also has keen interest in dancing and photography.