I Hope You Fall In Love With Someone Who Feels Like Home

I stood 3,000 miles away, on a cobblestone street, in a country whose native language wasn’t my own. I was looking for answers to questions I wasn’t even sure how to ask. But I knew I was looking for something. What I didn’t realize was I had found it already, it just took leaving to see that.

We associate home with the place we sleep at night, the place we grew up, the place our family and friends are or the place that is our address.

When people ask where home is, we reply with the town but lately I’ve been starting to realize home isn’t anything other than someone giving you a reason to stay.

Home is a place you feel safe and not because it might be a small town with a low crime rate. Home is that person that makes you feel secure. That person who simplistically eases every worry because they’re standing next to you. The person that reminds you, whatever it is you are going through, you aren’t going through it alone. That person that gives you something to want to come back to.

Home is simply where you’re wanted and loved and appreciated. The place where you’re good enough even with every flaw. But more than that I think home is a person.

The person that makes you happier than anyone in the world. Home is wherever they are.

And I hope you find that. I hope you find someone who never leaves, even when you have to. I hope you find someone who is still waiting for you when you come back.

I hope you find that wherever you go or whatever you do, there are certain people you’ll always take with you along the way. And that’s home.

Home is the person who can look at you smiling and know you are completely bullshitting the world and they ask what is wrong. Home is the person who can see the pain in your eyes when you’ve fooled everyone around you. Home is the person who stands by you in moments of confusion, they aren’t there to answer questions or solve anything, they are simply there and don’t leave.

Home is in that connection you don’t understand but it’s evident something is there between you. Home is letting someone into your world, even when you’re afraid. You realize as different as you feel from everyone else around you, you’ve found someone who is the same. Someone who gets it. You trust them. You’d trust them with your life if you had to because, somewhere along the way, they’ve kind of saved you.

You talk about dreams that might never happen but they look at you and believe in you and have confidence in you, enough that, you start believing in yourself too.

They know about your insecurities and fears and the things that keep you up at night. But they compliment you in such a way, they make you better than you ever thought you could be.

They somehow always know what to say and when to say it and you wonder how does someone know you when you haven’t even figured it out yourself yet?

Home is that person whose touch heals you. They teach you it’s okay to love again and this time it won’t hurt.

Home is the person whose happiness makes up yours. The person whose problems you find yourself taking on, trying to find a solution. Home is that person who teaches you not to be selfish anymore because suddenly, someone else’s well-being is more important than your own.

Home is the person you’d do anything for because if anything were to happen to them, a large piece of your own heart would break.

When you find this and try to describe what your definition of home is, others won’t understand until they experience it.

But I hope you find someone who defines what home means to you. And I hope when you find that person, you never have to know what it’s like to live without them.

Kirsten Corley is the author of But Before You Leave. Pre-order your copy here.