what's HOME mean to you?

Formerly, when I said "home", I meant Beaufort, South Carolina.

And then I meant "Wherever I live" - which was an apartment in Washington during the school year and my parents' home in South Carolina during breaks. 

And then I meant "Whatever place I'm residing in for more than 1 day" - which was Spokane, Olympia, Beaufort, and anyone's house I was staying at for the weekend. The definition got really fuzzy this spring. I stayed a lot of places.

Suddenly, it all changed. Instead of Miss Lindsay Norman, I was Mrs. Carson Bay. I wasn't living somewhere on my own anymore, by myself. I was living with someone, all the time, and we had rings and paperwork to prove it.... way more permanent than a roommate thing. 

So now, suddenly, home is not South Carolina. That's "Where I'm from" and "where my parents live". 

Even the definition of family has changed. My immediate family is one person - my husband. My extended family now includes my former immediate family and his former immediate family. Weird. 

To think of Carson as my family, the one who really will always be there until-death-do-us-part almost seems unreal. Yes, it's truly an adjustment. It's a paradigm shift of proportions not exactly epic, but definitely larger than I expected. I was used to roommates, siblings and parents. I've never been a wife.

Home, I've come to realize, isn't about the place you live at all. Home is really about the people, as corny as that sounds. That's why I think I've been able to call so many places "home" and really feel "at home" there. Sure, I can't wait to set up house in our apartment and have a place that's just our own, to decorate and run as our own, but that's not what it's about. I feel at home with Carson here just as much as I did in our little house in Naches. It feels right. Natural. Really good. 

What's "home" mean to you?