The Heart We Return To

We grow up believing that home is a building, four walls, a roof, a door, a place where we eat, sleep, and return after a long day. But as we grow older, we begin to understand that home is much more than just bricks and cement. Sometimes, home isn’t a place. It’s a person. It’s the person who makes you feel safe when everything around you are falling apart. The one whose presence calms your anxious thoughts, whose voice feels like a warm blanket on a cold day. With them, you don’t need to pretend. You don’t need to wear a mask or say the “right” things. You can just be. And that is what makes them home. Home is where you are truly seen and accepted, not for what you do or how much you earn or what others think of you, but simply for who you are. It’s that person who remembers how you like your tea, who knows the little things that make you smile, who notices when your eyes don’t match your smile. They ask, “Are you okay?” and they mean it. You could be in a crowded city, a qui...