Home is me

As a child, I thought home was a place,
Four walls, a doorway, a familiar space,
A roof that would shelter, a room that was mine,
A little safe world where my stars could shine.
I thought home was where my childhood grew,
Where every corner somehow always knew.
The sound of my laughter, the weight of my tears,
The person I was through my growing-up years.
Then life came softly, then life came fast,
And taught me that nothing is meant to last.
I left my first home chasing dreams and a career,
Carrying its memories but leaving it there.
Then marriage came with a different door,
A different address, a different floor.
I left another home, another familiar view,
And wondered, where does a heart belong to?
Then somewhere between leaving and starting anew,
I discovered something I never knew,
Perhaps home isn't a place that I need to find
Perhaps home is the person I carry inside.
I am the queen of the home I make,
And the maid who gives more than she takes.
I build it with patience, I clean it with care,
I fill it with dreams and empty my despair.
Some days I give my hundred percent,
Pouring my soul into every moment spent.
Some days I simply cannot do more,
And let the unfinished things wait by the door.
Some days I am laughter, some days I am pain,
Some days I am sunshine, some days I am rain.
Some days I feel strong, beautifully free,
Some days I just want someone to comfort me.
And sometimes the home that I built to feel safe
Becomes the very place where I struggle to stay brave.
For home holds the battles no stranger can see,
The silent conversations between life and me.
Yet perhaps that is what makes a home true,
It doesn't demand that I always shine through.
It welcomes my weakness, my anger, my fears,
It gives me a place for my unspoken tears.
I once believed home was where I belonged,
Now I know belonging can travel along.
Through every departure, each change, every sea,
The one constant home was always me.
I am my shelter, my window, my door,
The woman who falls and rises once more.
I am both the keeper and the one being kept,
The hand that builds dreams, the heart that has wept.
So, wherever I wander, wherever I roam,
I no longer ask, “Where is my home?”
For homes may be left, and addresses may flee,
But wherever I am, there my home will be.
And perhaps growing up is finally to see,
Home isn't the place that belongs to me.
Home is the self I learn to embrace,
A lifetime of becoming, within my own space.