Where the door is always open

©Fleur Lind

Family is the people you run to when your heart is broken to alleviate your sorrow when life gets too much.

Family is the people you constantly quarrel with and sometimes can’t stand, but simultaneously the ones you miss terribly when they’re away.

Family is the people who buy you scratch cards simply to see you smile when you win. The ones who take you on long walks, rambling along the way, just to make you forget your own troubles.

Family is where a door is always open for you to return because the love is unconditional. Always and forever.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

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The comfort we seek

©MCD

There is a truth we inherently know. The comfort that we seek all around us is ultimately found in our homes. The home we go to for refuge. Where we feel safe and welcome no matter what. Where our people love us unconditionally. Where regardless of your state of mind, you’ll be loved no questions asked.

Home is where you run to when life just gets too much. When the thunderstorms become too loud and you’re unable to manage them on your own. When your bubble has burst because you were filled with too many expectations that were not realised.

We return home to feel comforted. Because here, you’ll never be left alone unless you request it. Because the only question you’ll be asked is what you want for dinner. Because it is a chance to reset and reprioritize everything you considered valid in your life. It’s a chance to renew yourself and change your mentality. To return stronger, more confident, and with the determined belief that things will work out well.

We need our homes to be our safe place. No judgement, no criticism, no yelling; only laughter, love, calmness, and security.

Wherever we make that home and with whomever we choose, we need to be certain we can run there whenever adversities strike. That we’re not left alone to weather the storm but we have our persons there to help us through it. Relationships all require hard work from both sides, nothing ever simply fits into place; we need to invest ourselves and our effort to making things work if they’re worth it. But to do that we need people who welcome us with open arms when we call and say we’re coming.

We find solace in a hug, in a family’s embrace, in a loved-filled home. And that is what helps us carry on.

More than walls

© Brenda Cox

When we finally arrived, it was all there just like in that picture we had created in our minds after so many descriptions we had heard.

It was standing there, frozen in time, as if waiting for its owners to return.

Homes too have a soul. They encompass the feelings and memories their residents confide and build in them. The life we experience, the persons we shape ourselves to be, the laughter and tears we express, they all seep into the walls and are cautiously guarded like a well-kept secret.

It only takes a single breath to remember it all.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Home condiments

©Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

“Legend says that when you can’t sleep at night it’s because you’re awake in someone else’s dream”.

“That’s cheesy”, she grinned.

“It made you blush,” he smiled coyly.

“I once read that if you want to look at someone’s soul, you have to look at their dreams”.

It all got serious suddenly.

“The dreams we don’t share to many because we’re too preoccupied with making them a reality”.

She stared into his blue-grey eyes.

He was honest like no-other. And he had a plan.

One seemingly as simple, yet fulfilling, as having table salt and pepper in their common home.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Safe Haven

There is a place where you go to disappear when the world becomes too much.

A place where you feel safe and know that no one will judge, criticise or undermine you.

There is a place with people who always greet you with open arms, and comfort you even at the times you don’t know that is what you need.

There is a place we all have where we resort to when we simply want to forget all our worries, troubles, problems. And just sleep.

There is a place we call home. And it offers all these things for free. With the added bonus of including people who love you unconditionally.

Home is the place we return to – unfortunately – not too often. But it is where we recharge, rejuvenate, and regain the strength to continue fighting for survival in this strange world.

Trailing safe

© Ted Strutz

“I never knew what it was like to live your entire life in the same place, let alone the same neighbourhood or even country”. His eyes welled up whenever he would recount the story.

His audience gasped with excitement. For them, it was thrilling to have lived in so many places around the world, to have the opportunity to gain so much experience, to be somewhere different every so often.

But to Ted, that very lack of stability was the problem.

He had grown up knowing he could just pick up his house and leave – literally – whenever there was trouble.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

The real home we have

Her flat was beautiful, albeit small. Her parents had invested almost all their savings in securing for her a place of her own. In return, she gratefully ceded to them most of her income so that they could live a respectable life without needing to make more sacrifices.

But one day, the bank transaction went all wrong. She fell victim of a phishing scam that she could not revoke, and almost all her money was gone in an instant.

She could have done two things: either let it break her completely, delving into desperation; or allow it to make her stronger, changing her entire lifestyle.

She decided to do the latter.

With a sense of almost relief, liberation and excitement for the new adventure that opened up before her, she moved into the heart of the forest.

Using the little money she had left, she managed to build a wooden cabin based on an idea she saw in a viral video.

She retreated into isolation, knowingly and fully conscious of the huge alteration she was imposing on her life.

Yet, she was happy. And more relaxed and self-aware than she had ever been.

Her company was the woodland creatures that seemed to have emerged from a Disney movie.

She would spend hours observing them and witnessing the small traits each had; how their behavior was kinder, softer and more genuine than that of humans; how they treated one another without harm; and how they took care of the environment in which they lived and did not destroy their own habitat.

The forest was almost secluded in winter, as the paths would turn into swamps and crossing them became difficult.

But she did not mind.

Summer was the most social of seasons, when campers would disturb her isolation. She would exchange lifestyle habits with them, but it only served as a reminder that she was better off in her remoteness, away from a world in which she felt she did not belong.

In the end, it didn’t matter where she lived; what was important was feeling well inside her physical and spiritual home – her own body.

“You can live in a house, but your real home is inside you” – Leonard Jacobson

It’s as simple as this

Humans have an impertinent nature. It is a given fact. We don’t like to be told what to do and most often than not we will do the exact opposite of what you tell us. Because we can. And we feel superior by doing so. As if disrespecting you or regulations will give us impotency and show that we do not ‘bow down’ to others. That’s the mentality.

Similarly, during the time of Coronavirus, when the entire world has shut down and streets everywhere are empty, we have been ordered to #StayHome to #StaySafe. Yet, there are those – a surprisingly large number of them – who don’t comply because they don’t want to; because they are bored at home; because “they’re fine”.

People who work from home long before it became a trending necessity, know very well what it feels like to spend your entire day in the same space. But there is always something to do. If you don’t work, you can find things to keep you occupied and creative. It’s your time to relax, learn, read, watch movies, fix your home and garden, invest time in yourself. For the sake of it, all we’ve been asked to do is sit on our couch to #SaveLives. Why is this so difficult to understand?

There are so many people out there still working. They go to their jobs daily, with the constant risk of contracting the virus, simply to keep the world still moving. Many of them would very much like to simply stay home. Like we’re supposed to be doing.

Restrict your movements. You don’t need to be outside “exercising” every day, when you’ve never done that so far. The sooner we all comply, the sooner we will all be able to continue our lives. It’s as simple as that.

All that matters

©MCD

For the majority of people, holidays – especially Christmas and New Year – means home. It means being surrounded by your loved ones, the people who know you best and who will be next to you no matter what. They are the ones who stay whatever the situation is and who remind you that you are stronger than you think and can survive anything. You did so far, and you will continue to do so.

There is no place you feel safer than being at home. Because here, nothing can touch you, nothing can hurt you or make you sad. You have a safety net of love that acts as a shield, helping you cope with whatever is causing havoc in your mind. And you can get lost simply staring at a burning fireplace, wrapped up in a fleece blanket on the couch.

When you have a birthday on Christmas day – like I do – you feel this season more deeply. It is your season, your time, your day. Because you have no other all year round. No one is entitled to ruin it for you and you shouldn’t let anyone do so. After all, people hurt you only as much as you allow them to.

When I tell people I have a Christmas-birthday. I get two types of reactions: one is – ‘oh how lovely to have a birthday on this special day, you’re really lucky’; and  the other – ‘that sucks, you have everything crammed in one day and don’t get all the attention you deserve’. My view is somewhere in between. I’ve said it before, there are pros and cons to having a Christmas birthday. But when you get to share this very special day with people who really care for you and you’re overwhelmed with love and wishes, that’s all that matters.

A person feels happy when they feel safe and loved. Everything else will come at the right time.

Stay positive and happy holidays everyone!

That feeling of being at home

©MCD

There is a serenity in finding a place you can call home. Because no matter how many buses, trains, airplanes you need to get there, it is all worth the tiredness when you finally reach it. It is a place you hold dear in your heart because you know it will always welcome you back, no matter how far you go or how long it takes for you to return.

It is even greater if you have friends who will always be waiting for you and who will get out of their way to make you feel like home, because that is exactly where you feel you are. A family is one that extends beyond blood ties. And those friends who are geographically distant from you are sometimes the ones who are the closest. You will talk for hours about everything and always be up to date with each others’ lives. They will always have some wise advice to share and that optimism that everything will be all right and life will find its way to give you want you deserve.

There are places that mark our lives. Places where we wished we could live forever, as long or short a period that word connotes. There are places that don’t really change with time, but that is perfectly OK with us because you don’t want them to change (only if it is for the better). There are places other people tell you they visited on a travel streak and you are proud to say, ‘I know it, I lived there, it is like home’.

There are places where no matter your absence, whenever you return, you know exactly where everything is and where to go, where the hidden gems are, and where to find the best views. As if coming back home.

And if you are lucky enough to find such a place with friends who have become family, you are blessed with having a home away from home, one that will offer you peace and tranquillity, a place to crash (literally and metaphorically) and the strength to regroup yourself so you can return to ‘normality’ stronger and more optimistic.