I’ve been thinking about what it takes to finally feel home. Because although I own a mortgage and I love where I live, home hasn’t soaked into my bones yet.

My parents are selling the house that was home to my teenage years. Specifically the angsty years. Which was all of them.

Bless my parents.

Even though I only lived in that house for 4 years, I still feel a physical pang seeing the pictures up on the listing.

This is ironic because I’ve lived in my current city for 4 years and I still don’t feel completely settled in. The backstreets and holes in the walls are still yet to be explored. I don’t know what it’s like to grow up here. Plus, I was a renter here for 3 years, so the insecurity of renting still haunts me in the background.

Perhaps this homesick feeling is why the novel Homecoming struck so many chords.

Kate Morton writes fabulous mysteries that span over decades and reveal secrets held close by multiple families. This particular book solves a mysterious murder-suicide case that locals have resisted speaking about until now. Our protagonist Jess, a London transplant, returns home to Australia to care for her grandmother. Jess is feeling lost, after losing her house and fiancé back in London, and having been gone from Australia for 10 years. In trying to find her way again, she also finds herself in the middle of that mystery, while also making peace with her own life’s losses.

I can’t get enough of Kate Morton’s books in general. Historical mysteries are so fun. But I found myself relating to Jess in craving a sense of belonging. And that’s what I want to explore with this post. How do you feel like you are where you belong? And if not, how do you get there?

I believe that friendships make a huge impact on belonging, as well. This sentence particularly stood out, “‘The opposite of ‘home’ wasn’t ‘away’, it was ‘lonely'”.

Community encompasses a lot of facets, but let’s talk about friendship. Making adult friends is HARD. Especially when those friends have busy lives with children, growing careers, health challenges, distance, etc.

I am fortunate to have made dear new friends here. And they fell into my lap just by living on my street! Forgoing luck, how are adult friends made. Are there ways to create deep relationships wherever one goes?

Then thinking outwardly… Does it make a difference in my life to consider the lives of those who will come after I’m gone?

I really liked this sentiment. “They understood they were part of a line, not the beginning, middle, and end of it.” Isn’t that how we measure our lives? We use a linear sequence to describe our growth stages, both in age and accomplishments. What if I let go of the “next thing” mindset and take ownership of this current stage of life. Every aspect of this stage is also the story of my home. The local library, the massive oak trees that line the neighborhood, the broken sidewalks I avoid when walking Chloe… All of it is a part of my story. My home.

So what will I contribute to the story to make this place a home for future residents?

I don’t know what it takes to feel as if one truly belongs somewhere. Maybe ‘fate’ has a hand in it. But I like to think that the sense of belonging can be self-forged. And not in a way that just living in the same area for years makes a place feel like home. But to be a part of the community in some way. Have those close connections with neighbors and the city at large.

I would love your thoughts on what it takes to create a sense of home and belonging. And how to say goodbye to a home from long ago.