My Home Is Like...

This image comes from a writing exercise done in my First Year Seminar class yesterday. We were asked to write a simple analogy starting with the phrase "my home is like..." and ending with whatever comparison you felt compelled to make. We then passed the card to the right and allowed our classmates to elaborate on our unfinished though.

My initial thought was that my home is like an airport because at times, my family can seem quite transient. Cole is constantly at sports practice or games. Dad is either away on a business trip or working on the house on South Street. Mom runs errands or helps out at South Street or she's out walking each morning before I get up. I worked almost every weekday this summer from 9 to 4 so I rarely saw anyone during the day.

My classmates took my smilie and turned it into something thought provoking. I started to read it as something that asked the question: "what is my flight?".

I guess it's easy to say that college took me away from home, that the flight that I was always waiting for came in the form of an acceptance letter bearing the Columbia College Chicago logo but that dumbs down the best qualities of what a home is.

A home doesn't have to be the place where your mother and father live, in the town you spent the first significant portion of your life. Home can be where you have a safe place to sleep. Home can be a box of mementos from friends that love you. Home can be anywhere where you feel like you belong.

In that way, my home is like an airport because it can lead me anywhere.