Finding The ‘Home’ Elizabeth Gilbert Talks About

 Elizabeth Gilbert in one of her Ted talks, talks about ‘home.‘ She describes home as a place where one rightfully belongs and a place that one loves more than their selves. She calls writing her home and says that overtime she is displaced by success or failure she goes back home to find herself and continue on the journey.

I have been thinking about home for a long time. As a girl home has always been a thought for me. Yes, I have a home where my family is and where my loved ones are but there is a more personal home, a place both physically and mentally very private and very precious, a place where I am 100% myself and 100% content. This is not a permanent place but a very real place where I keep going back to at the end of the day to be with myself. Ms Gilbert couldn’t be more correct when she says that home is a place we love more than ourselves because to go through life one cannot just love oneself only, we need something more, something with more meaning and with more love.

As people, we go through such an amazing and yet such a hard journey that we often lose our home’. We go through life learning to let go of so much that makes us- our childhood, our innocence, our freedom, our parents, our friends, our titles, our locations and then eventually our children and some of us our partners. When I say let go I don’t mean we lose these things and people forever but yes we let go of them to lead their own lives as in the case of our children and partners and let go of the other things in the shape and form that they came to us. If we really let go of so much what is then left for us? It is that ‘home’ that Ms Gilbert talks about. That home could be our passion, our interests, our talents or in some cases our relationships and families that we always come back to at the end of the day. No matter what the shape or form, we must identify this home and hold on to to as this is what makes us who we are and this is what becomes our identity.

For me, this home has always been my freedom and whatever that makes me free. Writing makes me free so I always always come back to it at the end of the day. My need for my identity makes me free and I always work on that one thing which is mine. Love, relationships and responsibilities are possibly the three pillars of everyone woman’s life. Her love for her family and her responsibility towards all her roles and relationships. But this should include herself because we cannot give happiness and love to others without giving it to ourselves first and when we realize this is when we find our true home.. and remember.. home is where the heart stays!