A search for home; not a house deposit.

Note: the following post involves a sponsored partnership with Fantastic Services cleaning services.

Almost every occasion I sit down to write, I’ll start with the title.

The original driver for this piece read “Redefining Home.” On reviewing the last two posts on Currently Loving (and also on concluding this one), I realised the title needed slight alteration.

Incidentally, these posts surround the same topic of re-invention or redefinition. And honestly, I’m not all that surprised.

With growing up comes a lot of lessons. But the journey also demands far more unlearning than I certainly predicted.

In past writing, I discussed a definition of success to which I no longer resonate. Here I met with the realisation that today, I see it through a slightly different lens.

Certain objects appear far smaller. So much so, that some may even call this vision impaired.

Funnily enough, I prefer the imperfect view.

On from this, I have spoken on the importance of leaving home. It’s the only way to unearth how we’d create a new one.

We tossed around some of the most confronting questions in this post.

If given the opportunity, how would you start from the bottom up? How you would define living, without influence.

How would you fill your days? Or more importantly, how would you fill your mind?

Today’s post follows a similar conversation.

In the past few months, I have both realised and grown far less ashamed about my detachment from “home”.

Whilst others ponder over their long-term finances, wondering how they’ll manage to sink enough into a four-walled structure, I have found myself taking a seat outside.

Perhaps indicative of the age I’m at, I’ve found that I simply can’t pretend.

Pretend that home to me will ever come from a piece of paper with my signature on it.

Pretend that I’m worried about a prospect like buying the damn thing.

I’m simply not.

My apartment post-clean by Fantastic Services.

Should I be?

Honestly, I’m not sure. Perhaps there waits a time down the track where I attribute material things, big or small, with new-found value.

Maybe it’ll take having someone else to house. Maybe then, I’ll seek more than an emotional sense of home.

I myself don’t need a huge space to feel happy. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite.

Since being a little kid, I’ve found comfort in being able to see the things I own right in front of me. I’ve felt at ease by the notion that I could walk away from everything materialistic … at any given time.

Home to me is not so much the biggest house on the street. Or being able to call it my own.

It’s not the area, nor the walls, in which I first became tall.

No, home to me is a feeling.

And it took me moving countries to realise this most. It took me moving away from a place that for years, I’d associated so strongly with the word.

Yet still, this wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t until a recent visit from Fantastic Services (a monthly pampering of our residence) that I think it truly sunk in.

When myself and A.J. vacated our apartment for several hours, I finally understood the depth of this investment. Yes, I’d finally given in, and allowed for someone else to carry the weight of cleaning our place.

But the value of this extended far beyond a pristine-looking apartment. It even surpassed the release of unnecessary stress.

That morning, I’d ushered into my life the team at Fantastic Services. But also the gift of time.

It’s a gift that I now use monthly to reaffirm a true sense of home. One that I hold far closer to my heart than any material thing.

Today, home is many feelings instead.

It’s the spark between myself and a stranger. The delight when I realise that in some molecular way, we share a way of doing or seeing, or being on this earth.

Home, to me, is love. It’s being excited to spend time with my partner. It’s hearing my sister laugh on the other end of the phone.

Home, to me, is reconnecting with a greater sense of why. It’s seeing that our stresses and our woes fold into the breeze.

It’s exchanging them for the simple pleasures. A vibrant, galavanting kite. Just like the one I saw this calm Saturday morning.

Home is being less critical. It’s letting go of control, for the return of a far more valuable property.

Self love.

This is the power to be unreservedly and unashamedly yourself. The power to first, embrace your own spark. So that others can and shall open their arms as well.