Defining “home”
It feels weird to call my hometown “home,” because that is not where my physical home is… or where my “heart” is (if you go by the whole “home is where the heart is” thing).
Yet! I find myself saying things like “I am going home,” when I talk about going there. And when a friend is traveling to their hometown, I call it “home.”
Weird.
Ha ha, not really weird, it’s just habit. And I bet a lot of people call it this.
Is the town you grew up in always called “home”? Along with wherever you live, now?
My parents moved in to the home they live in now when I was very young, but I am curious about people whose families have moved… is their “home”/hometown now not where their parents live? AHH, what is that like? What do you call “home,” then?
Themocracy
home will always be where i spent my life growing up…even though my parents no longer live there (and, no, I don’t call where my parents currently live, ‘my home’). only one of my sisters sorta lives where we grew up but because it is a very small town (1,600) I have tons of relatives..in fact, when I go to every decennial anniversary of my high school graduation, it’s like going to a family reunion.
but here’s a wrinkle for you: where will you be buried? i have sometimes thought about this as it seems we’ve become such a nomadic people.. ironically, i know i won’t be buried in ‘my hometown’, but likely where my parents live – ha!
That is so cool that your hometown is close-knit like that! How many sisters do you have? 🙂
I want be cremated and have my ashes spread. Or disposed of. Ha ha. Do your parents have a plot set out where they live? Creepy question, I know. It is something worth thinking about, though. It was an interesting discussion when Steven and his dad and bro were deciding where to bury his mom.
Gosh, I have lived in so many different states/places over the last 25 years I can relate to this!!! Home is where my hubby, 2 kiddos, and furbaby are!!
That is exactly the type of situation I was thinking of!
My husband still calls his parent’s house “home” – it used to hurt my feelings because we have owned a home together for 6 years and lived together for 12! For me, home is where my family is, right now. For him, it’s where he grew up. With kids it is slowly changing for him, but he’s such a mama’s boy I think her house will always be home to him 🙂
So what does his call your house? He must call it home, too… right?!
Haha! He does now, but we had an apartment for 5 years – the same apartment – and he could never call it home. “I’m on my way back to the apartment.” Never “I’m on my way home.” Now he says it about our house though, so maybe it was just apartments can’t be home!? I have no idea. It used to be upset me so I’d try to get him to talk about it – I finally realized, it’s just one of his quirks. So I stopped worrying, haha.
I would have noticed that too. Apartments can be home! 🙂 imho
When I go back to CU I typically say I’m going to “my hometown” or “my parents”. Saying things like “I’m going home for the weekend” reminds me of college! “Going home” now means the place I live with Jason 🙂
When I was first living in Chicago, I definitely referred to Ohio as “home” (not unlike college kids, as Erin notes above!). But I haven’t actually lived there since 2003, so it doesn’t really feel like home to me anymore, so I’m more likely to say Chicago is home now. And although my parents do live in the same house I grew up in, it doesn’t feel like home anymore either. In fact, when my brother and I were both “home” last fall, I couldn’t get over the fact that the 4 of us all used to live in that house together – it’s been such a long time (he moved out in 2001) that it’s hard to even remember, much less believe.
The only place I call home is where I live now. My childhood home was sold when I was 23. If my parents still lived there, I would probably call it home, but i don’t have that option (still makes me sad).
I think that is interesting that people get so sad when their parents sell their home. Why do you think it makes you feel that way? I know a few people who feel really sad about it, and a few who don’t give a crap.
My home is here now. My mom somewhat resents when I’m back in Missouri visiting for the holidays and I go, “It’s time for me to drive home (to Chicago) now”. Missouri is my parent’s home. Not mine. I don’t mean to sound completely terrible, but I always knew growing up that my hometown wasn’t really where I was supposed to be. And I don’t have super fuzzy feelings toward it, either. It was just my “starting point”, I suppose.
You don’t sound terrible! And I hope your mom gets used to that, after awhile!
My home is wherever CB and L and I are 🙂 as in the lyrics of “Home” by Edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros…. “Home is wherever I’m with you.”
Moved around so much too, but as an adult with a permanent place of residence it would be ridic to call “home” any place but where I currently live. 😉
I’m only maybe an hour from where I grew up and my mom still lives in the house I inhabited since I was 5 until I moved out in college years. But “home” is wherever the Caveman and kids and dogs are.
My parents still live in the house I grew up in, but somewhere along the way I just started referring to it as my parent’s house.
Home is where my cats are. hahah.
I do often call my hometown ‘home’. I wonder if that is exacerbated because Kevin is from there too? Actually, I take that back, I think I refer to it more as ‘Up North’ when I talk about traveling back there. I used to call it ‘home’ much more before we had a permanent housing situation. 🙂
Your comment reminds me that sometimes I just say I am going to “Iowa” and assume people know what that means 😉
Home is Chicago now, and I think of going back to the DC area to be visiting more than “home.” But my parents don’t live in the home I spent most of my growing up years, and I’m even put in a redone guest bedroom when I stay with my parents. And they don’t have a cat anymore either!
I still live where I grew up, so I guess that’s home! 🙂
You live in your hometown? Or in the house you grew up in? 🙂
My home is where I live now. It’s not where I was born because I don’t remember NY and not where I lived the longest because (teen years) it’s not where I live now and my parents changed it so much since I moved out it’s nearly unrecognizable. It’s also going up for sale in the next month. So good-bye memories.
Is this “good-bye” memories sad or sarcastic? Someone else commented about being sad their parents sold their childhood home. I should write to ask people about that, since I haven’t experienced it but I have seen people react to it very differently.
I always call my home, esp because all of my family is still there.
Home will ALWAYS be where I grew up. I’ve lived in this town for 8 years now, but it still just is not home.
My parents still live in the house they bought in 1977. However, they recently got a dog who is VERY UNWELCOMING. Very territorial, and aggressively so. So, their home no longer feels like home to me, because honestly I wouldn’t feel safe there right now. (We bought them a gift certificate to obidience school; hopefully that solves the problem.)
But up until last August (pre-dog), it did still feel like home to me. (And not just because we lived there recently.)
What is up with that?! Do your parents care that he is acting that way? Funny, I was just chatting with a friend yesterday about an untrained dog and how it being untrained made me NOT want to be around it.
My husband still refers to his hometown as “home” if he takes a trip there, although he has lived in Texas for several decades. I think there’s just something about the place you grew up.
Where is he from? 🙂
My parents live in TX and I never lived there with them, so that is definitely not home. Right here is home – I’ve lived in Leuven since 1989, the longest stretch of time I ever lived anywhere (as a kid we moved a lot, and the longest we lived anywhere was 8 years in Geneva IL); and we’ve lived in this house for 19 years, from when our oldest was just a newborn. My kids have definitely had a completely different experience of home than I did – they’ve only ever lived in this one house!
Man! Did you ever think a foreign country would be “home” for you?! So cool!!!
P.S. When should we come visit? 😛
OREOS!!!!
Sorry, got distracted!!
Home is where my husband and I live. Even though I grew up in TN, when we go back to visit, I always say, “We are going to TN”. Virginia is my home. I love it here, always have. My parents still live in the house I grew up in, but I don’t think of it as home.
Have you tried those oreos yet?!
How long have you been in Virginia? 🙂
I have not…but I see a trip to Target in my near future!!!
We’ve lived in Virginia for 5 years already!! Time flies! After we moved to Germany when the hubby first joined the military, I’ve always thought of home as anywhere he takes us. I realized there is so much more out there than that small town I came from!!
My parents still live in the house I grew up in and I still sometimes refer to it as home even though I haven’t lived there in over 10 years. I think I tend to refer to it more as my hometown than my home these days. I’m not sure at what point I’ll refer to my current home as my hometown… maybe never? I still think of the town my mom grew up in as her hometown.
I will always consider the place I grew up in my hometown (and where my parents grew up, theirs), lol, even though this definition seems to imply it can be considered where you live, now – http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hometown?s=t.
I still call my parent’s house home. And I think it will always feel little (or maybe a lot) like home for me. I typically either say “I’m going home this weekend” or “I’m going to Iowa”. The second is funny because Iowa is large and I only visit a small portion of it. Maybe once I own a place it will feel more like home.
Ha ha. It IS funny, but most people think IA is small and that we all know each other! 🙂
What is the plan, now that you are engaged! Are you going to IA, is he coming here…?!
I don’t even know all of the people in my small hometown!
Matt is moving here! Hopefully soon! He just needs to get a job! We need to run together again sometime soon so I can fill you all in!
Yes! We should! Maybe even a ride when the snow melts (ha ha ha ha, jk, that will never happen!).
Ha I just made the joke to another friend that if we wanted to go for a bike ride together we would just need to set our trainers next to each other.
LOL!!!! That would be fun! Easier to talk than outside 😉
I do that too! I’ll call my hotel home even though I obviously don’t live in a hotel. I’ve probably also called your house home too. 🙂
I will always consider Garden Grove, CA my hometown. I do miss it (mostly miss the beach I used to ride my bike to when I was a teen) but I long to go back someday. Not to the actual town, but somewhere close (a beach front property in Newport Beach would be nice).
I’ve never really called Salt Lake home, even though I’ve lived here since 1997. I’ve been in Utah now for over 26 years and still don’t consider it home, even though I raised my daughter here and have lived and worked here.