Coming Home.

It's Homecoming season, one of my favorite times of year. I love the spirit that oozes from schools and the enthusiasm in which people bear their colors, wearing them like a badge of honor. With recently moving to St. Paul, and another relocation on the horizon, it's made me reconsider what I call "home".

"Where are you from?", people will ask when you're new to an area. My answer is inevitably A) Annoyingly vague: "The cities", or B) Mind-numbingly specific: "I graduated from Shakopee, and lived in Duluth for six years but when I travel next weekend, it's actually to man-friend's hometown, although it's basically mine now too..."

Ramble, ramble, ramble.

What makes a place your home? It can't just be where your possessions are, because if that's the case I'm pretty sure I've left a trail of stray left socks across the entire Midwest in rooms I once called my own.

My heart swells with pride when I travel and meet someone from Minnesota, and they innately understand the bittersweet love we have for food-on-a-stick and sub-zero winters. I grin when people say Midwest folk really are the nicest. When I rewind to my salad days, we moved a considerable amount (five different schools before 7th grade), and until we settled, I realized that I never felt lost--more like a person of all places. Minnesota was my home.

But last weekend man-friend and I went to visit our beloved Alma mater in Duluth, Minnesota. If anyone has ever resided in Duluth, you know the feeling that comes with rounding the last bend before you see the harbor. Driving the highway, the emotions rush back and the roller coaster feeling I experience is more than just the rolling hills taking their effect. It's love and tears and youth. It smells of fallen leaves, midterm-stress and stale beer. It sounds like Kanye on repeat and lectures with hangovers. It tastes like Sammy's Pizza and boxed wine. In every way possible, I found a family and I made a home.

We missed the official University Homecoming, but we visited the old haunts as time permitted. Even without the welcoming banners and pep-rallies, the city enveloped us in a familiar embrace. The memories are faded, yet the new changes were distinct-- things had evolved without us. Nostalgia withdrew it's grasp and reminded me how it has that funny way of letting us forget the sharp edges of our memories.

Regardless, the Northern Shore will always hold a part of my heart; a hopeful adolescent part of my history that can never disappear and for that alone I will always celebrate the city and school, as one of my first and truest homes. I'll bear a maroon and gold flag with pride for this, and every fall to come, but it won't wave alone as we discover new places on the map to add to our adventure.

And when we do move in the spring, someone will ask where we are from--because people always do--and I won't know what to say. I'll stumble and think about this post (but let's be honest I'm prone to rambling anyway) and they'll probably get the long answer. We've yet to settle permanently and thankfully have no rush to. Even with the move westward, I've no certainty that we'll remain there, but I am sure it will at some point deserve part of my heart as it becomes more than just a place, it will be somewhere I belong, somewhere we call home.