[home]

I've known for some time that UMBC was home.

Constantly moving, having to leave for holidays, and having to share a bedroom with someone else was not particularly conducive, however, to feeling like I had a home. It has been a strange way to live, not feeling like I truly had a home anywhere. Places that I had called home previous to UMBC now felt like prisons, and UMBC was home only in name, because the spaces where I lived were never truly mine.

This holiday I was asked quite frequently if I would be going home for break. I was even asked via email to "take UMBC home for the holidays," which consisted of taking materials promoting UMBC home and distributing them. Each time I responded simply by saying, "UMBC is home," adding, "I live here." I meant so much more than that though. I didn't just live here. I had nowhere else to go. This was, this is, the only place that feels right.

Walking across campus or simply wandering down to academic row at 3 AM (not even a squirrel in sight, let alone another person) over winter break has allowed me to contemplate UMBC as being my home lately. With no one else around, especially on days like Christmas day when not even sleepless graduate students can be found, the campus has felt much more like mine than it ever has before. I felt similarly over summer, although I didn't have nearly as much 'alone-time' then as I do now.

The real change, however, came last night, as I sat on my bed with my laptop talking to an old friend and a new friend. I had a few candles burning, and the crisp night air was whistling softly through my window screen. But the real mechanism in play here was that I was happy, truly happy, for the first time in a long time. It was a simple, uncomplicated, no-strings-attached kind of happy where I knew, for the first time in quite a while, that everything would work out. I was in a good place.

And as I stared out my window, lost in that self-satisfaction for a moment, my eyes wandering over the familiar dumpsters, walker field, and scattered arrangement of parked cars, an intense feeling of warmth came over me as I realized that I truly felt like this was my home.

This is home. Not because it has to be, not because I have nowhere else to go, and not because it is where my possessions are. It is home because of the parts of myself that are invested here. It is home because when I feel hurt I want to come curl up on my bed until it stops hurting. It is home because I can feel safe here. It is home because it is truly mine. The memories contained within these walls belong to me, and the thoughts and memories that I have brought from outside experiences now reside here, lurking in the corners of the room to be addressed at my will. It is home because I can always count on it to be here when I am exhausted or drained or need to be alone.

Several weeks of self-discovery have led me to finally feel as though this space, and my life, are truly mine. I have known it, but I have not felt it until now.

It is an excellent feeling. I move forward having accomplished something great. Tomorrow the university will again be abuzz with its soft hum of life, and I will step out of my room and into its hallways, knowing all the time that this place is truly mine.