Tell us about what home meant to you this year.

Home is a moving target. It used to be simple, calling someplace home, because that always  meant the small, unassuming house in Michigan, with the extra-large kitchen and a multitude of siblings.

But home is other places too. Home is Grand Rapids, sharing a room with my cousin and watching NCIS while drinking frozen cokes.

Home is Maryland, in a schoolhouse with painted walls and a broken stovetop, sitting with a blanket, a roommate, and homemade cookies.

Home is also Virginia, in more houses than I deserve, where conversations stretch far into the night as we eat cake and make plans.

Anyone could tell you that home is never really about a location.  We move and we put down roots and then we move again. The blessing and the bittersweet is that we can have so many homes in our lives, an overabundance of spaces with people and memories attached.

“You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.” – Miriam Adeney