The title of this one seems a little bit like a writing assignment I would get in a creative writing class. I guess that's kind of what this whole blog is though. One big, ongoing writing assignment.I could think of a million cheesy quotes about home being where the heart is and blah blah blah....

But I don't think home is a place at all. As someone who has travelled the world throughout my childhood, I don't think home is a house, a town or even a country. As I've grown up, I've always called Scotland 'home'. When talking to my parents, I'd always ask them when the next trip 'home' was but now that I'm here, I don't feel at home at all. I always dreamed of moving back to my hometown and living there forever but the thought of being trapped in the country I used to be in love with is truly terrifying to me. Most people grow up in a single town and aspire to leave it as soon as possible and I always thought the opposite. I always imagined moving back into the neighbourhood I grew up in, raising my children the same way I was. However, as with all things, I have grown out of that fantasy.

I don't know if it's because I've not had the greatest life since I moved back or if it's because my idea of the Scotland I'm from isn't the same as my true childhood home. Everyone is disappointed when they revisit something from the past because, in their head, they've built it up to be fantastic. In reality, the human imagination is far superior the the human hand and things we imagine to be incredible often turn out to be figments of our imagination, made to stop us being stuck in the dreary state of reality.

Home to me is being with the people I love. Before I moved to Scotland, I had a small group of friends I was very close with. These guys were the ones I turned to whenever I was upset and I spent every moment I could with them. When I found out I had to leave them, I was truly heartbroken because, as a traveller, I know how easy it is to lose touch with people and I didn't want this to happen with these guys. I tried so hard the first couple of months, staying up to all hours Skyping with them and trying desperately to stay up to date with our group chats but as I started a new school, I got distracted and they seemed to slip into the background.

Now, I know it's completely my fault and that you shouldn't abandon your friends for someone new but I knew I wasn't really abandoning them. Every once in a while, I'd check back on them and they'd all still be there for me, like it hadn't been a month and a half of radio silence. The other day, one of my friends was in town visiting and when I met him for lunch, it was like old times. There was no awkwardness and I just felt so happy and comfortable with him. I'm a particularly awkward person, especially one-on-one but with this specific group of people, it's like nothing else matters and I can be myself.

Those people are my home.