This week I’ve been thinking about home. Not just the physical place where we live, but the place that becomes part of our identity. The place where we belong and the place that belongs to us.
I watched the movie Away We Go on my friend, Rob’s, recommendation. It was his favorite movie of 2009 so I dropped it into my Netflix queue. It’s a sweet story about two people who are about to start a family and want to find the perfect place to live. They trek across the country and up to Montreal. Eventually they end up in a place that neither of them ever imagined being the perfect place because they’d been there before. And there it was. Perfect, and so easy.
This week was the series finale of Ugly Betty. I became a fan late in the series, and really ended up loving the kitschy, wink-wink-nudge-nudge humor. What I really loved was Betty’s desire to try to do the right thing, work hard, and follow her heart. In the end of the series, her heart lead her to a tough decision to make a new home, even when staying where she’d always been was a good deal, too.
In Real Simple Magazine this month, I read a story about a couple whose newly renovated home caught fire. They considered moving to Bali, rebuilding the house they had lost, and everything in-between. Eventually, they stayed on their property and developed a very unique new home from two structures that they had never considered turning into a house. It was in the same place, but an entirely new idea of home.
I guess sometimes we can go home again, sometimes we’re better off making our own way, far away, and other times, we can stay where we are and make it new again. I traveled a lot in my 20’s and moved around all the time. Now I’m nearly 3 years in to my 3rd return to New York. I haven’t lived in any one city for this long since I was 18 years old. I’m glad to be making a little nest of my own, and I have to admit that from time to time I wonder if there will be another home chapter after NYC or if I’m really here to stay.
I’d love to hear your perspectives on the idea home.
The image above is not my own. It can be found here.
Christa Avampato 
