Finding Home

by Sèren Carmody-Hendriks

For the frst time since beginning UCU, I fnally felt at peace with being home.

I began writing this piece in the beginning of January. I was at my parents’ house, but I had almost never considered their house my home — and then I did. It shocked me. I came back and my muscles relaxed, my mind softened, and the spots on my skin cleared — it soothed all my wounds inficted by 2022. Why now? How? Those were the questions I wanted answered, but at the top of this list was: what makes a home?

"How can my home be a home when returning to it meant being confronted with aspects of myself and my upbringing that I simply did not have the emotional strength or maturity to face?"

If made to answer this question quickly and succinctly, the reply would be unquestionably simple: “the house in which a person or family lives” (thank you Merriam-Webster). However, when given deeper thought, this simplicity is in fact very questionable. If ruminated upon, the defnition slowly transforms into a vague and abstract concept, wholly dependent on the values, behaviours, and culture(s) one has been brought up with. With these social ised conditions, a set of non-tangible re quirements also appear, fuid in nature.

Throughout my childhood and teenage years, despite having always lived in the same area, home to me was everywhere and nowhere. It was the sofa, the car, a friend’s house, my grandmother’s house, a random hotel room — anywhere that allowed the needs of sleep, hunger, and thirst to be met. Yet home, in the most sincere and honest context, had a gravity to it I felt I could never understand. How can my home be a home when returning to it meant being confronted with aspects of myself and my upbringing that I simply did not have the emotional strength or maturity to face?

In my ffth semester, I thought I had fnally developed my own individual defnition. In those months, my campus home was characterised by morning cofees with my unitmates, window chats with friends, and nights on the sofa making art. Yet, as always, with an up there is a down, and soon enough I realised my UCU home also meant coming to terms with all my self-perceived faults and failures.

In dismay, I quickly withdrew back into myself like a hand singed by a fre, and rashly discarded this defnition. I swiftly began reminiscing about my parents’ and grandmother’s homes — the routine, the stability, the familiarity of being a daughter rather than a student housemate, despite my previous hesitations. My wonderings then spiralled. I found myself unconsciously looking to the work of others to fgure out what the hell a home actually was.

“home does not necessarily have to be a place — and defnitely not a person — it can always be within yourself... I found that if you feel at home within yourself, and do things that make you feel at home, you can be home anywhere.”

One common theme was the home not being a house, but a country and/or culture. In addition to this, a home was a verb to be practised — a religion of sorts. For instance, cooking certain meals (read ‘Crying in H Mart’ by Michelle Zauner), or a more general example, the act of re- living nostalgic memories from one’s

To the poets and writers, home could be found within another, despite the potential feetingness and fragility. See this quote from Marlowe Granados’ ‘Happy Hour’: “seeing someone you used to love is like visiting a house you once lived in. Everything about them is familiar yet strange.” Even to some philosophers this was the case. Albert Camus wrote to María Casares confessing that “I have no other homeland but you.”

Even with these few examples, home quickly twisted itself into a convoluted mess. It was more than a space — it transcended those boundaries by being dependent on our own individual upbringings based upon our own social, political, cultural, and economic backgrounds (I highly recommend reading Shelley Mallet’s essay ‘Understanding Home: A Critical Review of the Literature’).

Unfortunately, none of this explained my unexpected relief that welcomed me at my parents’ house over the winter break. So, I discussed it with them. However, the gratitude I felt soon became a fowing ramble that revealed all my fears concerning the underbelly of home — its power to confront. Due to it, I developed a will to not want to settle in either the UK or the Netherlands. I wanted to be everywhere and nowhere instead, experiencing anything that was diferent.

My mum, a psychologist, stared at me after my mouth fnally grew tired, pondering in silence for a few beats before she commented, “home does not necessarily have to be a place — and defnitely not a person — it can always be within yourself. None of us can physically run away from our problems, they will always remain in us. I found that if you feel at home within yourself, and do things that make you feel at home, you can be home anywhere.”

I liked it. Of course, this is only a short and vague (and somewhat cliche) refection of what a home can be, but out of them all, I found the most peace within this particular answer. I admit, things change, and maybe my thoughts about what a home is will as well, but for now, I think I will trust the psychologist, and try to construct a home within myself.