Home. The last year of my life has been an exploration of that word. I came to a point where I finally had to admit that I no longer felt at home, in my home, in my city.
And in a search for a new home, I had to admit that I no longer felt at home in my work either.
Home: the place where one lives.
I was not living in my work. I had constructed a work self that was fragmented from my home self, and in doing so had lost my home.
My life looks very different today. I have made a new home, in a new climate with a rich ecology. The environment energizes me. It feeds me. It never depletes me. It allows me to be me — a whole human being.
Being a whole person, at home in my surroundings and in my own skin, has had an amazing side-effect: it has enabled me to see other people as whole human beings, too. I have greater appreciation of their differences. I have greater empathy for their suffering. I have a better understanding of their needs. I judge less. I require less. I relate so much more.
So I implore you: be fully you. If you find yourself in an environment, in any context, that no longer feels like home, if you can see that you’re compartmentalizing yourself and not allowing yourself to be yourself wherever you may be, you’re holding yourself back. You’re denying a vital part of who you are. And eventually when you stop feeding that part of you for long enough, it will die.
Stop. Take a deep breath. Take your whole self with you and leave now. Find a new home. One where business and pleasure co-exist, where you are expected and encouraged to be a whole, beautifully complex person, who is loved unconditionally for being fully you, where you can love your whole self unconditionally, and where you can’t help but love the whole people all around you.
Home: the place where one lives.
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Just beautiful. The happiness you’ve found reflects in the way you treat other people, and in turn projects happiness to them. It was great talking with you – you are a person of amazing depth and kindness.
So true. I am in the same spot as you and will start my exploration journey soon.
Now imagine living your whole life apart from yourself, never feeling at home except for a few fleeting moments that can never be captured or relived.
I understand what you’re talking about so deeply. It takes courage to take that step, but it’s the right thing to do and the wisest way to be and exist.
Thanks Whitney for expressing my story, our story, with such precision and inspiration.
That’s great, Whitney! :D
Congratulations! :D
Just what I needed to hear! Thanks Whitney!
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”
So Robert Frost had a character say in the poem “The Death of the Hired Hand.”
I do get what you’re saying and where you’re going. It’s wonderful that you’re sharing it too. I would strongly recommend you read Melissa Holbrook Pierson’s “The Place You Love Is Gone: Progress Hits Home.” Trust me…
So where are you going?
I’ve had this persistent “this can’t be all there is” feeling for a year. You clarifyed exactly what the issue is. I no longer wish to face the day thinking that if it was last day on earth I’d rather be doing anything than the work I was about to do. Thank you for the sense of urgency I now feel.
Best wishes to you in your new home.