by Shawna Blake

Created on: February 06, 2008

A safe haven, a port in the storm of life. Home is the place where we feel comfort and relaxed, as well as supported. Not just any house can attain such a title or even a feeling such as this. A house can be many things, where you dwell, where your family breaks bread, where you bathe and sleep. A home, however, is the place where you feel comfort, love and warmth. You can not get this from that mansion on the hill, nor that pricey rustic cabin that you'll still be paying for in twenty years, or that swank apartment overlooking the city. Home is where we have roots, or have rooted ourselves in. Home is where you go when everything else fails, and you need the support to pick yourself up and try again. Home is where the heart is. And the heart lies withing those that we love.

A house merely is a dwelling where we live our lives. To me, the deeper the feelings of a place, the more homey. Granny's house is home, no matter which house on the block that it is. It's in the smell of her home cooked roast, and the taste of the breakfast gravy that melts in your mouth. Home is where you find yourself enveloped in loving arms, where hugs abound. If you are truly in need, home where you can score yourself a genuine honest to goodness 'Yankee-dime', (a kiss) that will make you smile no matter what the circumstance.

A home is where we all flock to during the holiday's, the place where you know you will find a friend, or a cousin, or a sibling that is also hunting for a place to lay their hat awhile. The place where you find yourself kicking your shoes off, and lounging on the couch while leisurely stroking the head of a content dog. It's the place where, when walking in the door, the entire scent of the place fills you with ease, and your body shakes the dust and stress from your shoulders.

A home is where you can frolic and play, in the yard, or the driveway, in the same manner that you did as a carefree child. It is where your memories have seeded and grown. It is the place that you look forward to glimpsing through your windshield, whether the windows are aglow or whether they are dark. It's the place that you hold a continual key to, even if only in your heart. It is the place that you long to be when you are crying, or simply having a bad day. It's the place that you dream of inhabiting, or that you strive to teach your children.

It is where your mother sleeps in that antique family bed, and where your sister snuggles in at night beneath the quilt that has been passed down from each generation to the next. It is the place where that grand bookcase holds the coveted picture albums that accommodate the photo's from our youth, and our parents' wedding, and our grandmother's black and white memories. It's where you come from, and it is where you end.

Home is where your mother cooks dinner, and granny cooks dessert. It is where dad and grandpa sit and peruse the newspaper, and we laugh at the old family videos that are stored underneath the cabinet beneath the TV. These things can be taken from house to house, place to place. But, without the walls bursting with laughter, and the windows gleaming with love, it is not nearly a home. your home is somewhere that you can never quite leave, and a house is something that you contemplate selling. There's really no comparison between the house with a price-tag, and the home that is indeed, priceless.

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