I'm going home

"I'm going to the place where love and feeling good don't ever cost a thing; and the pain it feels a different kind of pain." - Daughtry

Since I moved to a completely foreign city, I think about the meaning of HOME much lately. We always use this word and we mean many different things when we talk about going home.

home
The place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.

 

I still consider Dortmund my hometown. When I talk about my home, I mean the house of my parents, where I grew up. However, I also say "I'm going home" when I'm heading towards my flat in Würzburg. I try to avoid this because I do not really feel at home here. Sometimes I am pretty sure this is because I don't try, but actually I am too attached to my actual home.

home
The family or social unit occupying a permanent residence

 

And this is where it gets easy, because this home-feeling is strongly connected to some special people: my parents, my bigger family and especially my brother. I can never consider a place my home where my brother is not around on a regular basis. But home is also connected to the small things. I already wrote about my handball team. They belong to my home. My bunnies belong to my home. My friends - of course - belong to my home. All of this mean home to me. And that is not here. That is definitely in Dortmund.

home
The district or country where one was born or has settled on a long-term basis

 

I call myself a local patriot. I am strongly connected to my region, my city. I love the way it is and the way others hate it because they don't know it. But there is one more place on earth that I call home: Texel, Netherlands. 

People might say that this place is so different from my actual hometown, too. But this is different. I grew up there. This is the constant of my life. This place, this island, is the only place where I always feel free and inspired. I know it better than my hometown; familiar places, familiar landscape - pure beauty. That is the kind of beauty I can see and feel.

home
A place where something flourishes, is most typically found, or from which it originates 

 

Those who know me have experienced me as a child from the Ruhrgebiet. Those who went to Texel with me have experienced me as a child of the island. I am both. I am not a child of where I live now, and I'll probably never be. That's ok. I need this experience to understand what HOME actually is to me.  

Home is more than just a place to me. It is everything that makes me feel loved, save, comfortable; just where I belong. A rock show is as much my home as Texel and Dortmund are. My family is my home. My handball team is my home. Sometimes, even my favorite song or book feels like home.

That's just the place where I am most likely to be found happy.  

(Definitions taken from the Oxford Dictionaries)