Ode to Homeliness
As I leave my home and family in Ottawa to begin the next stage of my life as an engineering student at the University of Waterloo, I wanted to share a reflection I have on what homeliness means to me.
That is, what my experience with a homely environment, one that provided simple but pleasant experiences, was like over the past 19 years of my life, and how it will change moving forward.
Home is where the Heart is
Throughout my childhood, homeliness to me was more than just the 2700 sq ft building I lived in with my sister, mom, dad, grandma, and more recently, my dog Simba.
What made me think of home and feel like I was home was a mix of things in four main categories: health, intellectual, social, and personal.
Health
Home was the time spent playing sports and being active. It was the time spent taking care of each other at home when we were sick. It was the days spent in the hospital while I was going through cancer treatment when I always had a family member by my bedside.
It was the kisses I got before my procedures, which I could feel just as lovingly as they would have been without a mask on. It was the staff at CHEO asking if there was anything I needed, making sure they gave as much attention to me as a person as they did leukemia the disease inside me.
It was the teachers at CHEO saying “Hi!” to me in the hallways that always boosted my spirits. It was the conversations we had together day in and day out in the Teen Lounge and my room.
Home within health was my family always helping me up when I didn’t have the strength to get out of bed myself, when growing up I just couldn’t figure out a homework question, or making me soup when I was sick.
It was tucking me in at night when I was young and saying “I love you!” every day. It was hearing me out when I was sad or frustrated, telling me what they thought I SHOULD hear over what they thought I wanted to hear, and it was the constant reminders of how proud they were of me that made me feel good.
Intellectual
In the intellectual sense, home was where I was encouraged to explore my interests. It was where I met like-minded people through clubs at school or organizations like The Knowledge Society (TKS).
It was where I had important and mature conversations with those around me, helping us understand each other on a much deeper level.
It was the hackathons, consulting challenges, and moonshot projects I took part in that allowed me to think differently about the world and our future within it.
Home intellectually was a sense of opportunity that continuously flourished within me. It was a sense of understanding that I could be and do whatever I wanted in this life. It was an acknowledgement that hard work was required to reach my goals, and that sacrifices had to be made to get there.
Most of all, it was an understanding that I was in control of my life and how I wanted to spend it, because at the end of the day, I’m the only person who is with myself at all times.
Social
Socially, home was the people I connected with in that collage of pictures at the start. It was the game nights we had at train stations, in the car, on dinner tables and on airplanes.
It was the birthday parties we had where the one celebrating their birthday was made to feel like a king or queen.
It was the potluck dinners we had together for Christmas or summer picnics, with each of our plates being licked clean from all the good food.
Home was the Minute to Win It games we played together, the sleepovers we had with cousins at our grandparents’ place where we stacked cards, played video games, spied on our grandparents, and slept in our sofa beds together.
It was decorating our Christmas tree as a family every year, where my sister and I always competed to see who could have the decoration that was highest up on the tree (we would always stack our decorations on top of the angel at the summit of our tree).
Home was the tobogganing and road hockey we did in the winter with friends. It was the tennis and baseball we played in the summer, hitting balls way up into the dark night sky and trying to catch them. It was the bug bites we got after golfing and camping outside on our porch.
Relationships were what helped me share that feeling of homeliness with others. When we travelled together, went to parties, or make jokes at the expense of one another, it allowed us to become closer and build a connection over what it meant to feel at home.
Personal
As for myself personally, being a lover of sports allowed me to build up my socialization skills through those activities.
My desire to make a massive impact on the world helped me develop mindsets like determination, empathy, helpfulness, and problem-solving skills.
It helped me understand that the best way to present myself to the world is by searching inward and expressing my authentic self.
Home allowed me to be open not only with others, but myself. I learned that mixed with the grit I needed to achieve my ambitions, I needed a sufficient dose of patience of love towards myself.
Patience in the sense that knowing that results won’t come immediately, and love towards myself in the sense that as a human being, I am designed to make mistakes. But as long as I was constantly evolving and trying to improve, that’s all I could really ask for.
My New Home
As I now depart a lot of the physical things that made up my experience with homeliness, whether it be the physical buildings back in Ottawa, the people I met there, and the things we did together, it is the memories and feelings of those times that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
So instead of thinking of home as being where the heart is, I think of it as the feeling of where the heart wants to be.
Though right now, it might be hard for me to feel a sense of homeliness in a dorm I just moved into and in a city I’ve never lived in, it is this feeling of homeliness that I imagine having that keeps me hopeful.
A feeling of seeing myself grow as a person into someone who is independent and mentally strong. A feeling of the new friendships I’ll make during my time here and all the great moments we’ll have together. A feeling of how much I’ll learn and develop a better understanding of how I want to spend my career. A feeling like I am EXACTLY where I need to be.
That is what homeliness means to me!
