Home

This word is loaded with so many meanings and emotions. Home. It begins as the place where your parents live, the place where you grew up. Home often gets mixed up with house, a concept we figure out as young adults. Then we grow up and get a place of our own or a place with our significant other and this becomes home. It is at this point that some figure out that the home of their childhood was far from being a home and some figure out that it was indeed an oasis, a home and always will be. We get busy living life and possibly adding children to our home and suddenly home has another new dimension for us. We travel to our parents' and still find that safe anchor, that peace, that protection that we are loved no matter what in that space. We hope that we create that feeling for our own children. But life keeps moving on. We lose our parents or they lose their minds, and we lose that physical home. Our children move off to start their own lives and our homes change in appearance, energy and sound.

So what is this word "home" and why is it so important to us? As I have hinted at before, it is our oasis, our shelter, our safe haven, our place to be who we are and still be loved and accepted. As this decade ends and a new one begins, my home will be changing. I will most likely (hopefully) see both of my children strike out on their own and form their own homes. I could lose a parent or both of my parents in this decade, and that home would be forever changed. So does this rock my world, am I scared? No, because I have finally found another home. It is within myself. I am happy. I am content. I am at peace with who I am. I love myself. So no matter what happens in my other homes, I am home with me. But I would be sorely amiss if I didn't mention another huge factor in my contentment. I am at home with my husband. He is my rock, he is my safe haven, he is my place of refuge, as I am his. And together, we can weather the changes ahead.

As you think of this decade to come, where is your safe haven? your home?