Where Is Home?

I went home for the weekend to see my family in Simcoe, Ontario. What an amazing visit. I spent quality time with my mom; we picked homegrown vegetables from her community garden and laid by the pool all weekend. I made her a yoga program to bring back some Wellness Warrior Strength!

A close friend remarked how interesting it is that I still call a place where I’ve not lived for over 15 years home. Naturally this causes me to reflect, what IS home, then? Is it the town where you grew up? The building that houses your primary caregiver as a child? A combination of the two? Would home as I know it cease to be if I had a family of my own? Hmmmmmm.

I’m emotional on the drive back to Ottawa, leaving home to come home (?) Radio on, cruise control set, deep in contemplation. Fraught with the realization that nothing will ever be as it was, or even as it is now. You’re all grown up. Consider the history you have with your parents–literally an entire lifetime. Every experience, relationship, story, event, failure, and triumph touched in some way by their presence. And then one day . . . you wake up as though from a dream, blown away by the stark realization that they won’t always be there, your parents.

I’d like it to stop. Time. Right now. Just stay right here. Stop moving forward (it goes so quickly). Time does. Only yesterday I resented being told what to do, and today, I reach out for that guidance.

What does it all matter– who’s right or who’s wrong. The past with all of its baggage. What does anything at all matter except this moment, and how you treat the people sharing it with you.

Credits: This article written by Eryn Kirkwood, MA,RYT. She is the owner and director of Barrhaven Yoga. You can find her writing here and here. This article has been reposted with permission. You can find the original here.

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