As I was driving home this weekend to go buy backpacking gear with Ma (picture(s) to come), I began pondering about people. People I know, the way I interact with people, how I’ve acted in the past compared to how I act now, how people interact with people, why we do things the way we do and more randomness. I’d already come to the conclusion on a much earlier drive that “home” doesn’t really have to be defined as where you live, it’s where your people are, where the ones you love and who love you are. For me, home-in the sense of the word- began in Waconia (obviously), and then slowly turned to Crookston as more and more years passed in the Great White North. When I realized that, I started wondering why Crookston was home – I went to school here, and now I work here, but I don’t have any real connections to the physical location. It’s the people – the friends I’ve come to know and care about, the people whom I know care about me – they are what make it home. And then on the other hand, now that I live up north, the only thing that ties me to Waconia are the people there (who I wish I could see more often than I do). And I know eventually I’ll find a guy, and it really wouldn’t matter where we ended up- he’ll be home. And when I’m on the other side of the world next year – literally about as far from home as one can get – I’ll still have a home, not physically per say, but I will be with a group of friends who I will hold as dear to me as if they were my own. It’s a bit more comforting to know home will never be far away, wherever I end up, because it’s in the people standing right beside me.
