Home Sweet Home

This weekend I went home to see my parents and get some things before spring break. Home is a brown and white house with two garage doors in a quiet neighborhood of Sharon, Massachusetts. It was nice to go back for a while, do some laundry, and have a good meal. But do I really live there anymore? Sure, I have all of my important mail sent there, and during every school break I head back there, but at what point does it stop being "my house" and become "my parents house?"

The idea of "home" is different to a lot of people. For some, it's a material place that they can touch, smell, and even taste, if they feel so inclined (just don't eat the lead paint). A place that you can go to and claim as your own. Where no one can touch you. For others, it's a place that you feel most comfortable. It could be on a friends couch or even on the road. As the saying goes, "home is wherever you make it."

I wonder if I've lost that feeling. I still like going back to Sharon--for a while anyway. All of my old friends are from there, and there's the sense of childhood and simpler times in that neighborhood. I've lived on and off in Amherst now for close to four years, and almost every time I come back to Sharon, I feel more removed than the last time. Every time I travel somewhere else, I feel as if I'm farther away from the childhood and growing up in Sharon.

It's not necessarily a tangible thing, but I can feel it. I walk around my house and all of the stuff on the walls feels somewhat different. Renovations here and there have changed my house enough so that it's hardly the place it was when I was a kid. Either way, it's still nice to come back to a place that seems somewhat familiar. Especially after traveling for a long time or being away at school.

At this time next week I'll be on a 747 headed to South America. I'll be heading to Uruguay to do some volunteer work in the capital, Montevideo. This will be my first trip to South America, and I'm very excited. We have a lay over in Buenos Aires, Argentina, but only for an hour or so, unfortunately. I'd love to actually get to spend some time there, but there just isn't any time. Keep checking the blog, because I'm going to try to post some entries while I'm down there. Hopefully there will be a working computer in the hotel. Stay tuned.