Channeling My Inner Dorothy

It's been a while since I really wrote out my heart, and to be honest I have tried for a couple weeks and so this may be a jumbled mess of thoughts but lollipops for you if you make it through the mess haha, I also apologize in advance... now here is my collection of thoughts lol.

Home. What exactly is home?

"Home is where the heart is" 
       "There is no place like home."
                  "Home is not where you live but where they understand you."
                          "Home is a shelter from storms- all sorts of storms."
                                 "Where we love is home-home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts."

For a while I sat in my house feeling as though I had no home. I would think and think but nothing felt like one. I would feel as though I was a tourist waiting for the next bus to hop onto in hopes that one day I would land home, and it would click. I made the decision almost exactly a year ago to take a break from school when I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life next (and quite honestly I am still confused and taking it day by day because the Lord shows a little bit of me and my passions slowly day by day to me.) It was a huge change, I don't think I even realized how big it truly was in the moment of making the decisions. I had moved to Lynchburg when I was about hmmm... 12 years old, and that's the place I had called home since. My parents worked and my sister attended a school an hour away, so for high school I was mostly left by myself. I wasn't alone, I was majorly involved in my school's theatre program. For college I attended Liberty University, which was twenty minutes from my house and my parents and sister moved to where they had their life (work and school). I lived in campus and all was great. Lynchburg was home. I recently wrote a sappy but true post about how much I love my dear home, the house that built me. Cut to this year and all the mess of last... and I am here with my parents and this place does not feel like home for me. It all makes sense though, I left this place when I was twelve and I never looked back. My best friends, my lessons learned, and where I truly found myself and God... wasn't here. My life stopped here but my families continued on in this place.

For some people home may be an actual place, maybe it's that pretty living room you slaved for days trying to look it's best. Maybe it's the huge house with the room for your kids to play and for their kids to eventually play in as well. Perhaps one day, I will find the actual building that will be home. For now though, I know my home isn't an actual place. It's people. I had quickly mentioned this during my insta roundup earlier, about gosh probably a month ago now I went back to my high school to see a performance of Aladdin Jr. I had never felt as loved, for a good while, as I did then at that moment. The hugs, the running up to me, the catching up, the genuine interest and worry for my life... was what I had been lacking. (Don't get my wrong my family gives me plenty of hugs and loves me.. that's not what I am saying.) But these are the people who had seen me grow too, who I had spent my summer's helping them with their plays, who I had ice-cream dates with and sang along to disney to. It was the reminder that your support group goes further than your family and the hard things, they won't break you... unless you let them.

I just am overwhelmed, and my thoughts are so over the place that I feel horrible for my readers because I am not sure if there is a point other than extreme thankfulness that there is such a thing as friendship, connection, and community. God has continually shown me his love through the friendships he places in my life... and some don't last as that's life but I have so many people I can rely on when things get hard, and they got extremely hard when I failed my chance at majoring in what I wanted and continually made plans that fell through after that. If you don't have that person in your life well then I am telling you right now without a doubt I will be that person, shoot me an email... tweet me... comment below whatever.

I guess I just want to say thank you. Thank you to my actual family who picked me up when I was so low on the ground I didn't think I would ever stand again. Thank you for showing me at a young age my passions and for feeding into them. Thank you for the dance lessons, the musical watching, the sing alongs, and the the endless support. Thank you for understanding when I needed to take a break and felt (and sometimes still do) like a complete failure and for understanding when I get nervous when I know I just have to face even one person that was in that department. Thank you for pointing me to Christ with each step and bad dream.

Thank you to my friends who have became a family (both in real life and in blog land) who continually supported me when I wanted to give up on a dream of ever feeling like I was going somewhere with my life. Thank you for the late night phone calls, sitting through the sobbing, and for never once treating me different once my world had crashed down around me. Thank you for still believing in me and for never once judging me like so many on lookers did and do. Thanks for being my home, and the place I can go back to and know I am still the same girl I once was.. and can be directed in the path I need next.

I channel my inner Dorothy, (Wizard of Oz was always a favorite of mine) I put on those shiny red shoes, and I chant There's No Place Like Home because I finally found it. It's community, it's friendship, and it's right where I need to be.

I'm sorry for this long winded, crazy... maybe it made no sense post but sometimes home is exactly the people you have surrounded yourself with and those who lift you up when your down.. and I think that's better than any mansion could possibly be. (Even the Baudelaire Mansion and like I was obsessed with that house k. lol)