You are my Home

With roots as wide spread as the branches on an infinity tree —the sense of grounding that One would normally find in their hometown, I find in my lifetime friend. With the memories of home and childhood being as fluid as the ocean itself, it’s within the person who knows me best which is where I find my home. This past year has put our minds into an intense state of flux, and whilst travelling home to see the ones we love and to hang out at the places that we miss — my best friend Tessa is the one who brought me home.

Im the middle child, one of three who were raised by a single mother. We moved around a lot. Our address was updated as often as we changed schools. Don’t get me wrong, I quite enjoyed moving around as a child. So much so it inspired the bohemian lifestyle I chose to live during my mid twenties. This non attachment to the typical concept of “home” was the foundation of how my life would flourish. Feeling no security in an ol’ brick & mortar, I knew bricks weren’t forever. I understood as a child that home was a feeling we felt inside, not the walls we see outside. The house we called home would changed so frequently that I never had the chance to grow an attachment to its walls.

A nineteen year long friendship that has a foundation stronger than those memories of any hometown, this friendship is the one honest home which welcomes all the changes of my personal growth. Unlike a place that evidently undergoes developments — a new cocktail bar in the main street, that favourite boutique you only ever window shopped in because you were only eighteen and never had any money to buy boutique clothes — they moved around the corner and there’s now a Real Estate office where they once were. Perhaps the town was once a bustling coastal town but is now no more than an inconvenient bypass on your way to the city. The town doesn’t remember you, but if it does, it members you for all that you were and not for all that you have become.

Tessa and I moved out of our parents homes at sixteen years old. As two clumsy teenagers we eagerly flew from our coops and spread our wings along the expanding horizon. That horizon lead us first to two different cities, Tessa in Melbourne and myself in Sydney. I found myself riding the the neon rainbow in the emphasise Kings Cross, where fantasies could be bought at a reasonable price. This period in our lives was our first separation — our first time leaving each other as each others homes. I spent the next two years in a city where I knew no one. I had not a single soul who understood my foundations in the way that my home did — in the way that Tessa did. The anonymity of the city was its main appeal. Coming from a small town on the coast on the West I was eager to play with identities. As I grew into the woman I fantasised of being it wasn’t without some awkward fumbling. Being young and impressionable also felt lonely at times. It was at those moments when I wasn’t able to fly home on a whim or when I wasn’t surrounded by familiar surroundings, it was in those moments I would reach out for Tessa. That always forgiving that forever nurturing warmth the comes from having someone know and accept you for everything that you are— it goes beyond any love I’ve had for a postcode.

It was the reassurance I received from a message that read I love you, or the fact that I never felt the need to explain myself to Tess — she has always understood and accepted. This adoration goes both ways. Unlike the changing landscapes of a hometown with people leaving and new people moving in, as we ourselves grow our hometowns don’t always feel the same when we return. The home that resides in this friendship grew with us. You know the saying “You can’t go home again”, well for us we never truly left.

When we think of home we remember how it made us feel. We feel safe, calm, accepted and nourished. It’s a space that welcomes creativity and makes room for change. It’s a space we feel unconditional love. For me this space is held within a person —her name you know, it’s Tess. During the many ups and downs experienced in this lifetime, it’s within the love we share in our friendship that I feel grounded and at home. When I feel uncertain of myself or of the choices I have made, a phone call to my friend brings me back home. When I’m feeling lost or alone, a phone call to my friend brings me back home. Some people are stimulated by visuals or surroundings, they feel at home in a specific place. For me the sense of home lies deep within a friendship, a nineteen year old friendship that remains evergreen.