Yes, just part of my heart. The only part that brings me back, family and a few friends who are basically family. The holiday season is hard when these people are scattered across the country. The closer it gets to Christmas, the more anxious I get about traveling “home”. Don’t get me wrong it’s not that I’m not over the moon excited to spend time with my family and friends. I love that I will get to see my niece on her very first Christmas, and that my girls will finally get to meet their new baby cousin. I love visiting my grandparents and I am so thankful to be able to spend another holiday season with them. That is not what I dread about making the trip.

The minute I pull the suitcases out of the closet, the anxiety skyrockets. It’s not the drive, I mean yeah its horrible but that’s not it, there’s something more. The feeling I get every time I travel back to my hometown makes me feel empty. Home is where you feel safe and secure. Home is the place where you don’t have to worry about anything, your comfort zone. My hometown doesn’t make me feel like that anymore. Home is a place that just feels right. I feel like a stranger there. My family and friends will always be a part of me, but I’ve outgrown that town and moved on. Sometimes I even feel guilty about how little I miss it, it’s where I was born and raised.

Home to me is a feeling rather than a place, home truly is where the heart is. But only part of my heart is in my hometown. The rest of my life, the rest of my heart, is in South Carolina now. You can go back to your hometown and see all the same familiar places and memories will come flooding back to you. But you will never be the same person as you were when you lived there.

Home is where part of my heart is….home is with the people who have your heart. Because at the end of the day, it’s not the destination that is giving you that warm fuzzy feeling, or that feeling of dread and anxiousness. It’s the people who are there, who bring you life. Home is my grandparents’ house decorated with the same Christmas tree since I was 5, its my sister and my new snuggly baby niece, its my best friend and her boys. But it’s also my mom and sister across the street, my crazy southern best friend who tells me like it is, and my adorable, sometimes annoying barking beagle. Home is with my family both in Maryland and in South Carolina.

Find the place where you are happy, loved, secure, and you laugh more than you ever have. That is your home.

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