Coming home.

An essay I read for one of my English classes has had me thinking about the idea of home.

The dictionary definition says:

HOME: noun

1. The place where one lives permanently, esp. as a member of a family or a household.

 I started thinking that it goes beyond that. 

Home was the place I dreaded when my curfew started rolling around. 

Home was what I called the D-TV offices my senior year of high school. 

Home was what I hurried to my first semester of college for free food, laundry, and an escape from reality. 

Home was the place all my friends congregated while they were waiting to leave for their missions. 

Home is what I long for when I'm alone in my apartment because I'm stuck at work all weekend. 

Then I found this. 

And started thinking of the times home had been merely a moment in time.

Like the midnight drives with my roommates around the temple when we didn't want to do anything else.

Walking into SigEp and hearing a chorus of "Hi Ash" come from the boys I love more than anybody else. 

Falling asleep surrounded by my best friends with a movie playing.

Singing Taylor Swift at the top of my lungs with my little sisters on the way to a lunch date. 

The waves from the front window of Kappa Delta as I walk up to the front door, and the laughter that is inevitably filling the room. 

The feeling that overwhelms me as I drive down Main Street in Farmington. 

The hug I get from my favorite boy right before I leave for the night. 

It's funny--you think home will always be the place you grew up. But as you get older, you realize that home is anywhere that's touched you and any place you left a piece of yourself--and that maybe, just maybe, you're a little piece of home for somebody else.