a place to call home.

so i have this thing about home. i love being home. i liked college in san diego, but the breaks when i got to go home, that was the good stuff.

i remember at our senior chapel this past may, our student body president was speaking, reminiscing on all the things our class had experienced together.

"remember the first time you called point loma 'home'?" she asked.

murmurs and giggles filled our chapel, smiles on everyone's face.

but not mine. i turned to my roommate sitting next to me and said,

"i never did that."

part of my statement came from my relentless i-don't-do-things-just-because-everyone-else-does attitude, but the other part came from a realization that i never let myself call point loma home. i never allowed those beautiful sunsets and that ocean view to really get ahold of me. i think somehow i felt i was betraying the motherland (i.e. portland) if i did. 

but i think i missed out.

i spent hours, hours on one of the most beautiful tracks in the world, but i never let it be my home. i always said i was going back to "school" or "the apartment" or "my dorm" or "the track". 

never once did i say i was going back home.

so i don't feel like i can tell people that i lived in san diego for four years. because in my mind, i was just on a long vacation.

by the time i realized this, it was too late. i was a few days from graduating, with just another week or so left on campus.

landon and i have talked about how long you have to live in a place before you refer to it as where you're from.

he said he'd tell people (say, if we were on a vacation) that he's from lebanon.

intially, i said i'll always tell people i'm from portland, no matter how long i've lived somewhere else, which he promptly told me was ridiculous, and he was right.

because i don't want to have that feeling again.

that feeling that i missed out on letting a beautiful place be my home. on embracing something new, rather than clinging, eyes shut to where i came from. portland will always be special to me, but it doesn't mean i can't see the beauty in this place too.

it's nothing special, but look at those clouds. look at how far you can see past our buildings, over the open fields.

slowly, but surely, i'd like this place to be home, too.

xoxo.