home.

a couple of bloggers i follow (meet annie and marisa) blogged about home today. turns out, one of their bloggy friends is asking bloggers to do so, i signed myself up.

so. home.

over the past twenty-something years of my life, i have moved 17 times (13 different houses/dorms/apartments). that being said, i lived in the same house for over 16 years, and i have only lived in three towns. let's just say i moved a lot during my college years. and i've had 30 roommates.

i consider all three towns to be my home. i do not, however, consider all 13 dwelling spaces to have been my home. some of them were very short-term (a few were two weeks, but rent was paid, so yes, i lived there).

anyway. i'm getting off topic.

home.

i'm going home for thanksgiving in a few weeks. this is the house where i spent the majority of my life. i have a lot of childhood memories (and adulthood memories too). while i lived in two of the three bedrooms (i stole my big brother's room when he moved out), i no longer have a room to call my own. at the moment, there's a guest bedroom, which is considered my brother's room (though he no longer lives there, he visits more than i do and he has a lot of personal effects in the room). the room i lived in last has a computer desk, and that's about it. regardless, it's still my home. home doesn't mean having a place to call my own.

i lived in eight different places in my college town. yes, eight places in four years... six of those places were in the last two years. anyway. i more or less think of the campus/town as a whole my home, rather than any specific place. with maybe the exception of two places: the intern house, and the mercy house.

the intern house. i lived there for two months. with six other girls. and we all got along the entire two months. that's not to say things were perfect... things were definitely not perfect. with the five other interns (all dudes), our pastor, and a dozen or so other member's of our community coming and going as they please. it was beautiful. those two months of my life were the best definition of community i have ever experienced for myself. i need to move on, as that could be a blog of its own. maybe it will be some day.

the mercy house. it wasn't even a house. it was my church. it wasn't even a "church" as one would call a building. the building itself was an elementary school, until the church moved in. then it became our meeting place, as well a dorm of sorts for some of the guys in the church. we were a new church... our internship started only months into the life of the church. while i never lived there, i still consider it my home. even now, when i visit that place, i only recognize a handful of faces, but it still feels like home.

nashville. my current home. there have definitely been times over the past few years where this place seemed like the furthest thing from home. but now, i can't imagine living anywhere else. this city has so much to offer, and i love every little thing about it.

this might sound contradictory to what i just said, but there is somewhere else i belong. i don't know where that place is, but part of me has always felt homesick for a place unknown. this world is too large to live in one place for forever. whether it's short- or long-term, i know i have somewhere else to discover someday.

actually, this world is not my home. i wasn't made to live here. i'm meant for something more. we all are.