The puzzle of home

Home.

The idea of home has haunted me over the past few years. I have written about it many times, searching for how to redefine it while I detach myself from the traditional sense of home I’ve always understood. It has not been an easy path to follow as it has led me zig zagging in all sorts of directions. I know I was destined to travel each of these paths but often time they seemed disjointed and disconnected. I’m finally understanding they are all different pieces of the same puzzle.

Not having any ground to stand on to call home has been more disorienting than I care to admit. I did not realize how important being rooted and stable was for me until I uprooted myself fully. It’s funny because this is not the first time that I have chosen to live a nomadic lifestyle. Over ten years ago, when I was just beginning my career as a physical therapist, I chose this lifestyle because it was the only thing that felt right to me at the time. Looking back, I am still a little shocked that I chose to be a travel PT with so much certainty.

I don’t like change, I never have. But my fear of commitment was greater than my fear of change I suppose. For three years I allowed myself to exist without roots, floating from place to place completely untethered. It was a radical way to live while everyone else I knew was settling down. I didn’t know anyone else that was choosing to live the way I did at that time. I was ignorant to how much this season would alter me for the rest of my life.

I loved that season for many reasons and in ways, it was the beginning of so much. I went from someone who struggled to connect with new people and didn’t love stepping out of my comfort zone to someone who made deep connections quickly and enjoyed challenging myself in new ways. It was my initiation to rewilding in many ways. I had no choice but to do hard things constantly. In a way, I subconsciously knew that I wouldn’t challenge myself unless I was forced to. Thankfully, my younger self had courage oozing out of her being.

Every place that I lived, I found a sense of home in different ways. I found people to love, I found nature that nourished me and I found a desire for adventure that lived deep in my bones. As I return to another season of nomadic living, I am again pulled towards a deeper and more nuanced understanding of home. It is not always easy to redefine concepts that we believed to be solidly understood, but honestly, it is one of my favorite things to do these days.

Home, is often defined by the four walls we live within. Or perhaps the people we call family, whether that is chosen or by blood. I used to believe that home required deep roots. It was something that could not be achieved unless I chose to slow down and stay in one place for an extended period of time. I thought of home as something that would limit my freedom of movement. But I don’t think that is exactly right. There is so much more to home than this.

I have been pulled towards the human desire for stability with relentless force over the past few years. It is funny how the more I resist an idea, the more I get sucked into its orbit. It is often when I step back and detach from stability that I begin to learn the most. Letting go of my traditional sense of home has led me towards the greatest lessons of what home is over and over.

The lesson this time around has been an understanding that home is not a tangible thing. Home is all about a felt sense of safety. I’ve said it many times and will continue to say it as often as I can…At the core of most human behavior is a deep desire to find safety. It is hardwired into us; avoid pain and seek safety. Of course, this obsession over understanding home parallels my obsession with pain. Pain is the loudest signal that directs us away from threat and towards safety. In a round about way, pain is often the pathway towards home.

When they say, everything is connected, they (whoever that is) weren’t kidding. How else can I explain that my chosen career helped me to stumble onto the path of studying pain and suffering, which has led me towards understanding myself in ways I could never have imagined. For me, pain has unlocked many doors that have led me in wildly unknown directions only to circle back to right where I began. Life is silly and beautiful in that way. Again, they are all different pieces of the same puzzle. Everything I do, everything I learn, everyone I meet, all puzzle pieces. They may look and feel oppositional at times, but it is my work to find how they all fit together.

Pain often seems like the central piece to my own puzzle. Pain, this lifesaving signal that our body produces to communicate the presence of danger, real or imagined, within our environment, is the key. Without this communication, we would be lost in the wilderness of this world without a light source. There would be no way to know safety without pain. Pain is the light source that leads us to safety, to home.

What I love about this is that when we take a step back and deconstruct our definition of home down to a felt sense of safety, home becomes far more limitless. Rather than home being something that restricts me to one place or one group of people, home becomes expansive. Wherever I feel safe, whoever makes me feel safe, whatever makes me feel safe, is home. When I broaden my lens in this way, I gain the awareness that I have felt home hundreds of different ways in my short lifetime.

I have become far more intentional about cultivating safety in my own world over the past few years. Truly, it was what started this most recent season of nomadic living. It is comical that my decision to upend my sense of home was actually me returning to seeking a deeper sense of home. I really love the sense of humor that the universe has with me! It asked me to leave home fully knowing that I would find a more expansive sense of home in time. It makes me so grateful for my ability to trust in this divine presence.

So home, this subject that I keep circling back to during my times of nomadic living, is not just about settling down and finding roots. Perhaps home is more about cultivating safety. About figuring out ways to feel stable, grounded and safe wherever I wander. Understanding that even if my home looks different than expected, it doesn’t make it less than. I can continue to live nomadically, untethered to any four walls, and find a beautiful sense of home.

Safety is not always easy to find in todays world but when you dig in the right direction, it really is abundant. I have so much gratitude that life has led me in the direction of safety time and time again. I can confidently say that I have found beautiful homes in many places, people and things during this season of life. It has taught me again that there is not one correct way to live. I can continue to chose a life path that looks radically different than the norm and feel at home. It all comes down to safety. Safe places, safe people, safe things and most challenging for me, safety within.

We each get to choose how home is defined in our reality. In my reality, I am choosing home to be a felt sense of safety. Because that means that each time I find safety, I get to find a new home. And what a gift to have hundreds of homes sprinkled across time and space! In time, I hope to feel so safe within myself that no matter where I wander, I will feel home. I know it is my path to continue to seek safety as I move through the world. I know it will happen, in time. For now, I will find patience and rest in the many homes I have already discovered.