When home is a millions places

Its strange being back to work after two wonderful weeks away. Its strange to be back in the cabin after two weeks at home. And its strange to sit in silence after the hustle and bustle of living with 4 other people and 4 animals for two weeks.

But its a good strange. I LOVE my time at home. Someone wise once said that "home is where we are the safest, and therefore the most alive" and I truly believe that. I am so much more ME at home than at any other place. I am more ME when surronded my mother or my sisters.

But, I'm learning that home is becoming less a physical location to me and more of a group of people. I could be at home in Lithuania if the right people were with me. And those people aren't just my blood family. Its a collection of people who I feel truly safe with that have become my extended family. They are people who have built trust with me over the years, knocked down the wall I've put up, and simply won me over. So they earned the right to be home. They are my home away from home. However, they are either concentrated around my physical location of home or scattered throughout the US.

After a long period of time away from my Home-people (homies...haha), I can feel myself becoming blah. I can feel the essential "Kellyness" that makes me- me, draining when I'm away from people who KNOW me. I feel like I eventually lose sight of who I am. Before I left home for Christmas, it took so much effort to do anything. To be entertaining. To use the quick wit I'm known for. Or to simply be me. I felt I was acting like me, acting like a Fake Kelly because I didn't know where I really had gone. I felt kinda dead, in a sense.

But now after two weeks immersed in all who are home sweet home to me, I feel more myself than ever. Its effortless to be completely and abandonly who I am. I feel so alive.

Perhaps, that is what I need to work on for the new year. I need to work on allowing myself to let more people in. I need to knock down the walls myself and give trust more easily. I need to be easier to know. I need to find more places where I am fully alive and safe. I need to let people know me. And I need to get to know myself. I need to be able to remind Kelly of who she is.

More than that, I need to let God remind me of where/Who home is. And that above all else, He created me and can tell me better than anyone else Who I am. I need to learn to depend less on home, less on self, and more on God....