home sweet..where?
"You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone..

..You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this right of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for you kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place."
- Andrew Largeman, Garden State

if you haven't seen Garden State, you should go see it. if you have seen it, then you probably remember those lines.

i suppose it all started last year when i first moved into my jester east dorm. it was kinda weird at first, considering i now had to sleep in a new room every night. but of course, it was more than that.

i went back home a lot last year. i guess it's all pretty normal, right? first year in college, you're supposed to get homesick. but the strange thing was after each return home, sugar land would feel less and less like "home."

it almost felt like austin was my new "home," and sugar land was nothing more than my "home away from home." but does it really matter? where exactly is home?

to me, the word "home" means so much more than its definition as "a place where one lives." when i think of "home," my mind is filled with various memories of birthday celebrations, Thanksgiving feasts, Christmas get-togethers, laughter and tears, etc etc.

but at the same time, i can't help but admit that i can feel "right at home" outside the house i grew up in. so i've decided on a new definition of home.

home is not a physical place. home is a feeling. a feeling of comfort and happiness that fills your body when you are around the people in your life that you really love and care about. so whether i'm in sugar land or austin, as long as i'm with my friends or family, i am definitely at home.

so i guess..home really is where the heart is..