Neva and me and Neva,Oliver and mom from camping extravaganza family trip

My summer Roomie ( aka my sanity and angel) from the summer and our dear friend Sara

Another Smithy favorite, my dear Catherine. at one of our many summer potlucks ( we gotta eat right, even if we are studying non stop) :)

So many homes and so homeless

Instead of reflecting, summarizing on all that has passed, I will leave what has been lived as life, and start a fresh.

I appreciate everyone's comments to keep on blogging on and they are the main reason I am restarting after my lapse we'll call it.

I have arrived in Colorado. My second and final smith placement. I didn't choose Colorado for a placement, my top priority was working in a VA. Many professionals I have talked to have expressed how valuable of a place it is to be in as an intern, so that is what I asked for. And thus I am at the Colorado VA.

My moving, restarting has me pondering the idea of a home a place, a community.

I was sadden to leave North Carolina ( more than I realized originally) I had connected with really wonderful people and the community, space was beginning to feel like my own place, people.

This past summer I returned to Massachusetts, and fell into the ease and comfort of my smithy friend community. The friendships that were started last year continued to deepen. The need for one another is mutual as everyone is away from their home and loved ones. Sharing food, woes, complaints, swimming, wine, and study time eased the stress and intensity of the "Smith Summer". I felt thankful to not have to navigate making new connection with people, but have a "group" to be with.

As I returned to Oregon for a week with my family, I realized that it wasn't home for me any more. It is my beloved parent's, family's home, my favorite place on earth with some of my favorite people, but it was no longer home.

The thought that followed was, where then? I am almost 28; I am homeless.

This whole blog has been a record of my wandering. I take great pleasure in my adventures, my travels, my varied and rich experiences. But they do leave my roots without grounding. I am so blessed by being loved by Sooo many different people, I have such a wealth of relationships and support in my life. I am sure I have slept on the couch/ spare bed of almost everyone reading this blog.

But what makes a home? I know not literally homeless, but as in my place, my space, a community I leave and return to.

IT is not belongings, I know those don't make a home ( although I do envy married people's excellent cookware)

It takes time, familiarity, a sense of commonality with those around you, perhaps?

What else acceptance. Is this why we seek people like ourselves? Because they are the easiest to feel accepted by, the more we are like someone the more likely they will feel familiar and accept us.

I see this need for familiarity with the Veterans I work with. Only with one another do they really feel understood and known, what they have experienced and how it has changed them isn't something they could explain to anyone, so only with each other do they understood.

Maybe this is why I lack the feeling of a home, because I seek people, places and experiences that are unique, new to me, and I alone experience them, the combination of them all that is. I love the unknown, I uproot myself to feel and experience the world, feel blessed to skim the depth and breadth of diversity that exist. But these experiences, as they are experienced in my singular state leave me unknown, connected in such a scattered way.

Maybe it is not a lack of homes, but the abundance, I have been blessed to feel so connected in so many places, with such a variety of people, I have a lot of homes to miss, but not one to call my own.