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Home is Where I Am

      We've all heard that famous quote "Home is where the heart is." It was one of the few overused quotes that I could actually stand because I understood its worth. I really didn't though, until now. 
      I don't travel much and even when I'm in my own town, I'm a total homebody. It's where I feel most comfortable and contains so much of who I am that I feel no reason to stay away from it for too long. But then I got to thinking of how easily I've latched onto the people and places I've been lucky enough to be introduced to the past few years. In those experiences, I didn't have any hankering to get back home. I missed my family, but that was usually the extent of it. That's when I realized my definition of what home is changed completely.
      I don't get homesick, I get family sick. Everyone says it, but I truly feel that being born into my family was the greatest gift God could ever give me. My parents are the most supportive and generous people I know. My sister is a ray of sunshine that fills my life with an endless amount of positivity. To be a 1/4 of my family is to feel safe, encouraged, and loved now and for the rest of my life. They are the best part of me, because I wholly believe I would not be the person I am without their unwavering devotion. These beautiful people have instilled in me such secure and complete ties that they are my home. My heart is continually connected to my family. That's why homesickness has ceased to affect me. There's a small bundle of things in life that I'm sure of and one of them is that I carry my family with me wherever I go.
     So sure, Marshalltown is my hometown and I've resided in my house for several years. I have a fondness for Iowa because it's only normal to become familiar with where you grew up (and are still growing). These are all places I hold dear, but I'm not scared to leave them.
     I sincerely hope that life will take me to many new locations and that I'll have the privilege to call numerous places "home." Heck, whenever I stay at a hotel I refer to it as home. "Home is where the heart is." My family is eternally embedded in mine, so where I go, they follow. 


     I guess that's why I feel so at ease when I immerse myself in new settings. Though I'm still struggling to settle with it, I wear my heart on my sleeve so that enough people have brushed past and left their mark as well. Homesickness? I know nothing of that. Peoplesickness: being sick in an aching kind of way because you miss special human beings that effortlessly found a way into your heart...oh yeah, that hurts like hell.

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