Home is something everybody has, but what is it really? Is it a specific building? A specific place? A specific person or people? Imagination? Every person perceives the world through their own unique eyes. Opinions stem from personal experiences which result in personal attachments to words. A familiar word is the word home. The factual definition of the word home is a place where one permanently lives. It is one’s personal habitat where they spend their time every day. A standard understanding of a home is a building ranging in sizes that fit the needs of the individual, whether it be for pleasure or limits on money. Although the dictionary definition of the word home is where one lives, the word contains a more deep and emotional meaning literally and thoughtfully. 

Home doesn’t need to be a building or a place; it could be where family is. Simply being in the presence of family is home. It is where the feelings of safety, warmth, and love is. Home is not a physical building that encases people within its installation and harsh walls. It is where the people who are most important to an individual are. There doesn’t need to be a physical building at all! It doesn’t matter where family is or how populous families are because the people who care about the individual are there right beside them, sheltering them with their love and compassion. Home can be in the middle of nowhere and still be considered an amazing place. Why? Family is there to bind everyone together. What if someone doesn’t have a family? Home can be wherever a person or people who care for the individual are without being related to each other. Friends can be where home is. It doesn’t matter where in the universe someone is, as long as they are with their friends they are home. Home can be more than people, it could be a location. 

Apart from the idea that home is where family and friends are, home can be permanent or can move from place to place. From a specific point of view, home is the place where someone is born. So, since they were born in a specific location, that location is automatically labeled as home. It cannot change because then it would not be the place of birth. Some people live in an ancient building that has been lived in and passed down through generations of family members. It is a building where loads of memories have been created and have been ingrained in the walls. Leaving this special building would mean leaving all those delicate memories and sense of familiarity. In the opposite perspective, home is not a forever place. People move all over the world, searching for the life they fantasize about in their dreams. Others move to new states or countries for work, money, or personal opinion. It could be a spiritual enlightenment or a devastatingly forced change. With me, my home is now in Arizona. I was born in Illinois and lived there for my whole 16 years I have been alive. It was all I knew and never thought I would ever leave it. My parents hated living in Illinois because of the weather and taxes, so Arizona was something they dreamed about for a long time. My dad’s work had an opportunity for him to move, so he grabbed and ran with it. Now, my home is wherever my family is. It is not a forever place, but a place that can improve my life and give me new opportunities that I would have never been given back in Illinois. It is a concept that is difficult to grasp, but I know I will learn to love my new home. That is what is special about the word home; it has a different, spiritual meaning to every living thing on the planet. 

Besides the denotative meaning of the word home, it also includes the definition of where the heart longs to go. People imagine their dream life of where they would be if there was nothing holding them back. No minimum wage jobs where there is no hope of reaching the top. No societal pressures sinking people to the bottom of an ocean with nothing to bring them to the top to breathe their own thoughts. No people shoving them down, down, down into the depths of depression where there is no escape. The heart and mind wander away from the shameful life it experiences and escapes into a different reality where they can relax in dream land. Some dream of calling another world off the planet Earth home. Others long to live on a sandy beach where they can look at the paradise of the calm, salty ocean every sunrise and sunset, thinking only of nature and not the common stress of life. But does the heart truly know what a home is? I think so. There is no harm in allowing the heart to dream. Home is where people want to end up, for real life or fantasy. Where they can settle down and appreciate their hard work that brought them there. Their blood, sweat, and tears that escaped their body to allow them to fulfill their fantasies and goals. 

Home is a word that contains a special meaning to every person. It develops its meaning based on people’s backgrounds, situations, locations, families, friends, hearts, and dreams. Slapping a definition onto this word limits the rich understanding of what it could mean to somebody. Diving deeper into the word home can help people appreciate their own home more.