What is the meaning of home?
Is it just the place that you claim as your residence? Is it where there’s a roof over your head, food on the table, and a bed to collapse into at night?
Or is there more to it than that?
Is it where you find the people and the things that you hold dearly above the rest of the world? Is it where your memories and hopes and dreams are stored away for safekeeping?
For many, home is a difficult thing to define. But the sensation of a warm ball of golden familiarity in your chest is a universal experience for those who are lucky enough to find it.
For me, it feels as if I’ve lost a lot of the meaning of it.
I’ve had the privilege to live in the same home for my entire life. I may have bounced back and forth between bedrooms a couple of times during my indecisive years, but for the most part, everything has remained the same.
A lot of what makes up who I am as a person is contained within these walls. So much so that I often catch myself running my hands along them, wondering what they remember, what they’ve witnessed. I wish that they could tell me.
And in one way or another, you’d always remind me that no matter the kind of day I had, at least I could always come home, where I was safe and loved.
But then you died.
And now I feel constantly stuck between wanting to be home and dreading stepping foot over that threshold ever again.
Now it just feels like a residence. Cold, empty, foreign. I feel like a stranger who doesn’t belong.
It’s too quiet and too dark. I stare and stare and stare at your closed bedroom door as if I could somehow manage to will it open and find you there once again. I linger randomly in places just to touch your things and notice how they remain dust-covered and forgotten by your once busy hands. I strain to listen for the sound of your voice only to end up hearing my own shallow heartbeat and disappointed sigh instead.
It doesn’t feel like home anymore without you here. Now it just feels like a tomb.
Today’s prompt comes from my own thoughts and feelings. Each letter to my dad is written candidly; unedited and unfiltered.