Imagine moving into a new house - make it big/small/shabby/fancy to the extent that pleases your senses, we are imagining after all.
Now imagine the process of (what people commonly refer to as) "making it your home".
Imagine the anticipation of moving in. Imagine painstakingly, yet excitedly spending time to make it an extension of your personality, filling each nook and cranny with things that make you feel that the place is a part of you. While the colours, and the fabrics, and the furniture is what the world sees, it is your tastes and the unique combination of things pictured in your head and then, then picked and chosen carefully to make the space yours. Imagine the pride and joy of putting it all together, imagine being naive enough to want to show it off to the world. Imagine putting so much toil, to what could be snatched from you at the blink of an eye. Human beings are idiots.
Imagine feeling afraid that it might not be what you want it to be, that it might disappoint, it might not accurately reflect who you are. Imagine the feeling of giving up when it all starts seeming too pointless. It is just a house after all and those are just "things" you're filling it up with. But that doesn't make a house your home. It doesn't happen in a day, but it happens nonetheless, irrespective of intent; well, most of the times.
After a point of time, the nooks and crannies are filled not just with things you picked and chose, but a lingering smell of you and your co-inhabitants. The outlay is embedded is so deeply in your head that you don't need light to walk around and figure your way. Comfort comes, not from the colours of the wall or the softness of the mattress but something else, the sigh at the end of the day, accompanied by a "I'm home" ring in the head. Imagine feeling that acute sense of belonging to what was hitherto just a permutation of things and walls and colours. At some point, it transcends to become so much more. At some point, it becomes what you look forward to at the end of each day, what you long for every vacation, it's the place against which you benchmark every route you take. Whether it's clean or messy, it still defines security, comfort, and peace for you. Something unique - perhaps time, perhaps familiarity, perhaps hope, perhaps that initial anticipation and love, perhaps people, perhaps memories, perhaps ownership, perhaps commitment, perhaps effort that it demands off you - translates all things tangible into something more than feelings or words.
There are of course days when a minor leak, shock or break might annoy you. When repeated pest infestations might make you feel that this place is just not worth it. But you know you seldom mean what you say. This is what you built with your own bare hands. You love putting in the effort to keep this place, your abode, intact, and as completely yours as it ever was. There are such few things that are.
Imagine being in such a place and then, unexpectedly, out of the blue, being asked to pack up, and leave.
.. to be continued
**
Now imagine the process of (what people commonly refer to as) "making it your home".
Imagine the anticipation of moving in. Imagine painstakingly, yet excitedly spending time to make it an extension of your personality, filling each nook and cranny with things that make you feel that the place is a part of you. While the colours, and the fabrics, and the furniture is what the world sees, it is your tastes and the unique combination of things pictured in your head and then, then picked and chosen carefully to make the space yours. Imagine the pride and joy of putting it all together, imagine being naive enough to want to show it off to the world. Imagine putting so much toil, to what could be snatched from you at the blink of an eye. Human beings are idiots.
Imagine feeling afraid that it might not be what you want it to be, that it might disappoint, it might not accurately reflect who you are. Imagine the feeling of giving up when it all starts seeming too pointless. It is just a house after all and those are just "things" you're filling it up with. But that doesn't make a house your home. It doesn't happen in a day, but it happens nonetheless, irrespective of intent; well, most of the times.
After a point of time, the nooks and crannies are filled not just with things you picked and chose, but a lingering smell of you and your co-inhabitants. The outlay is embedded is so deeply in your head that you don't need light to walk around and figure your way. Comfort comes, not from the colours of the wall or the softness of the mattress but something else, the sigh at the end of the day, accompanied by a "I'm home" ring in the head. Imagine feeling that acute sense of belonging to what was hitherto just a permutation of things and walls and colours. At some point, it transcends to become so much more. At some point, it becomes what you look forward to at the end of each day, what you long for every vacation, it's the place against which you benchmark every route you take. Whether it's clean or messy, it still defines security, comfort, and peace for you. Something unique - perhaps time, perhaps familiarity, perhaps hope, perhaps that initial anticipation and love, perhaps people, perhaps memories, perhaps ownership, perhaps commitment, perhaps effort that it demands off you - translates all things tangible into something more than feelings or words.
There are of course days when a minor leak, shock or break might annoy you. When repeated pest infestations might make you feel that this place is just not worth it. But you know you seldom mean what you say. This is what you built with your own bare hands. You love putting in the effort to keep this place, your abode, intact, and as completely yours as it ever was. There are such few things that are.
Imagine being in such a place and then, unexpectedly, out of the blue, being asked to pack up, and leave.
.. to be continued
**
"At some point, it becomes what you look forward to at the end of each day, what you long for every vacation, it's the place against which you benchmark every route you take." :O *them feels*
ReplyDeleteThank you Ankit! Glad it generates *them feels* :)
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