Many, many years ago I read some quote or another that said “you can’t make homes out of people”. I’m certain there was another line that went with it, but I can’t seem to find the exact same full quote when I look for it now. I remember being struck with the weight of that quote. I nodded my head and then my heart kind of sank. I was doing it wrong. Clearly, this weighty quote must be right because the rest of it seemed full of such wisdom. It has laid heavy on me for years. I think of it often, particularly when I meet people who very much feel like home. Yet I have been on the other side of something like that which felt far too heavy to bear, so the quote must be true…and my feelings must be wrong.
I’ve literally started to write about this a dozen times or more over the last few years and today was no exception. I finally decided that this was it. I was going to put down words that told how much bullshit this quote was and how heartily I disagree with it. I started mentally composing my words over dinner not half an hour ago. And then my heart and my words finally met in the middle and I understood. *Truthfully, I wrote this post nearly a year ago and didn’t post it because I wasn’t sure it was quite right. But I just read it again today and it felt right and true. So here it is.*
Making another person your home is all about the other human. It means they are responsible for keeping you warm, dry and cozy. It removes the responsibility from yourself and places it with another. Their foundation has to be strong enough to carry you both now. And this definitely isn’t right or healthy. It can absolutely crush the other person. I know, I’ve been there.
So what is it then? How can I explain what my heart feels around these sort of people without compromising the value of being fully responsible for my own emotional well being?
And this is what I just managed to parse out. And perhaps it’s a small differentiation, but I find that words matter a great deal, so it’s important to make the distinction. It’s not the human…it’s the connection. The relationship itself is what feels like home. Home is the relationships between people. These are the relationships (and I’m largely not talking about romantic relationships here honestly) that allow you both to feel both supported and able to support. They lend strength without taking it away. They give you room to grow without feeling constrained, but also give you a line to reach for when you start to spin out of control. Without these connections, we feel adrift. And yet clutching on to another person is likely to eventually end in both of you drowning. Healthy relationships are the lifeline that bring us in to home.
So very many of the places where it have felt truly at home aren’t really even real places. They are often constructs…places that barely exist in the “real world”. Places we build together for a brief time and then we tear them down when we leave. Or we shift them back into what they were before we arrived. And suddenly this makes sense. Because it’s not the “you” that feels like home after all…it’s the “us”.