This Is Home

Home.  
Mexican food and palm trees and sunshine.
Home.  
Vietnamese food and fir trees and rain.
Home.

I live in San Diego.  Born here, raised here, lived here my entire life.  My roots are deep in this, America's Finest City.  I know it.  I can tell you where the best pizza joint is, how to get to the closest In-N-Out, where to find the tastiest beans, where to buy fresh tortillas, and the name of the restaurant that has the best green salsa you've ever tasted.  I know the legend of Kate Morgan and I know Cabrillo was actually Portuguese, not Spanish.  I have grown up with the relaxed, easy-going, mañana attitude that is such a major part of the surfing culture.  (Despite never having surfed.)  It's my city.

And then there's Portland.  Bridgetown.  The City of Roses.  Starting in 2007, I've spent two or three months of each year, usually over Christmas, in P-Town.  Various circumstances have called my family north - a friend's back surgery, buying a house for my brother and then remodeling it, work for my dad, my brother's wedding one year, a nephew and a photography workshop (IPS shout-out!) the next.  I grew accustomed to transferring my life and started putting down roots.  I consider my brother's church to also be my church.  I have learned to like coffee based drinks.  Some of my best friends and my favorite family members are in the Northwest.  Whenever I'm sick, I want phở instead of chicken soup.  Life was changing and I was becoming more and more attached to Portland. 

You know those families who seem to know everyone, and who everyone else knows or has heard of?  Well, my brother married a girl from that family.  I became friends with her brothers and suddenly I knew all the people in the church who were around my age.  And everyone else knew me.  (I've lost count of the times people came up to me, asking how I was, requesting I tell Oregonian-transplanted-to-California hi from them.  I, of course, had no idea who I was even talking to and I was never brave enough to ask.)  So I started making friends and I found I could settle easily into the groove made by like-minded people.  Homeschooling families, conservative values, a church where I actually learned something.  I loved it.  I didn't want to come back.  It felt like home.

I was at a loss.  I suddenly had two lives.  On one hand is the place where I've grown up and have a history.  On the other hand is the place where I've made new friends and grown closer to God.  I honestly didn't know where I belonged.

And then life changed again.  Dad was asked to remodel a parsonage into offices, so we made our usual 18 hour drive, stayed over Christmas, and had a grand time.  January came around and we were still in town, which made me happy.  Until a conversation was had, a relationship was scrambled, and I lost one of my closest friends.  There was drama and hurt and it felt like World War III.  This friend went to the same church, so there was a weekly reminder of pain.  In past times we had always sat together at the shared meal after the service and now we were just barely on speaking terms.  I had to shift my habits and adjust friendships and what had been simple was now complicated.  I do not like complicated.  So when it was time to leave, I was glad to get away.  Back to work, back to routine, back to real life.  That was definitely a switch.  I don't know if I have ever been more grateful for San Diego.

So.  Where is home?  What is home?
Am I supposed to choose between two places that each hold a half of my heart?
I hope not.  Because I can't.
I have no idea where I'll ultimately end up, but for now I shall live in one and visit the other.
Because home is in both cities.
Home is where I laugh until I cry, where I run to clear my head, where I can hug the people I love, where I can work with my hands, where I can make my parents proud, where I remember to be grateful, where I watch the waves crash, where I hear the wind howl in the evergreens, where I'm pushed and challenged and stretched.  Home is wherever God puts me.  Because He is with me constantly, and when I have Him, I am home.