What is Home?

I wrote this a long time ago, then edited it and posted it this evening.

“This evening I was talking to a friend that said he was homesick. After a while of discussing where eachother was from, I remembered something that I don’t believe I’ve posted about yet.

My mom, brother and sisters and I moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee when I was about a year old. Some back-road house in the middle of nowhere at the time- a complete culture shock from my city-thriving family. It was like we moved from somewhere that held so many memories, both good and bad into a new and quiet place where we could start all over. No more violence, worries or memories left behind. Well, for them at least. I grew up running around my front yard bare-footed in some basketball shorts exploring the woods, and I spent my fair share of time poking my head out of my dad’s front door and looking down the street in Highlandtown, watching the cop-car action and whatever else the city has to offer (nothing too good). I loved my dad so much, and when I was little I would always say “Baltimore is my real home,” thinking that where you’re from is your real home.  But that wasn’t the case and never will be.  A few years ago when stopping in for a summer visit, long after I’d started attending church back home in Murfreesboro and making close friends in the youth group and in school, and I felt something that I’d never really felt before when I was in this place I once called home. I felt empty and lost...

Everything was so familiar, yet unfamiliar. This place where I rode down the street in a car and felt like a foreigner, like I was out of place, like I didn’t belong here in these downtown streets where most people seemsto live hopeless lifestyles sucked into drugs, prostitution, sex, broken families, depression, suicide, violence, ten times worse than what the “ghetto” parts of Murfreesboro might be.  Here is where I spent a small portion of  life, here in my dad’s house, and my Mamaw’s house, down by the park and at the snowball stands and at Edgemere Church of God, where everyone seemed to know me but I hardly even knew them,  this place where I was born and that was suppose to be my home, that I called home, but it didn’t feel like home...

 What is home, Hannah?

I pondered.

 I remembered the cool summer evenings in the front yard where the grass was fresh and soft and the fall leaves scattered at the park. I remembered school and my classes and friends and pictures and my church friends and the life-lasting friendships I’d built there along with the time I spent in quietness, in growth. I thought about what would change in the future and how I’d keep growing, going to high school and eventually to college somewhere. I wondered where I’d be when all of that happened. I felt sick. I didn’t even want “Baltimore blood”. I didn’t want the accent. I didn’t want the reputation as a city girl (and I thank God that I don’t have it). I didn’t want any part of it.

And I didn’t even realize how good I had it at home until that point. To grow up in Rutherford County, "Where the tea is sweeter and officers thank you kindly for carrying a gun", being able to attend a public school, especially Oakland High School, where I can make friends and achievements and not have to worry about shoot-outs or someone beating me up or jumping me or dragging me into something I didn’t want to be involved in. To grow up in open space where you have room to grow rather than being smothered by the densely populated homes and the stench of downtown. To be able to relax in the quiet, to feel the breeze, to ride your bike anywhere and everywhere on a clean street…

I wanted to back to the place I knew. I wanted to go home.

Sometimes it takes us a long time to find out where our real home is. Here while we’re on earth, anyway. I have people in Baltimore that I care about deeply, even moreso now than ever before. Not all of Baltimore is bad. Some of it is even exciting or nice at times. It's adjustment.

God put us in each place, each nation, state, province, city, town and neighborhood for a specific reason. He assigns us things everyday that we may not even take notice of. We just do it because he tells us to. He sends us places that may not be our real homes for important reasons.

When I was ten, after staying with my dad the entire summer and starting school in the fall, my dad almost won custody of me. But I ended up getting thrown in a car and unexpectedly driven back to Tennessee. It was traumatizing, even up until this day, and I wish it didn’t have to turn out that way. But sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I would have stayed...

And I realize that I wouldn’t change a thing back then.

Here’s Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The place I’ve known most of my life. A place where I can run free. This is my home. Here’s where my church, my school, my friends and some of my family lives. I may not be here for the rest of my life, but right here, right now, this is where my heart lies. After high school… well, we’ll wait and see where God sends me then. "