Home is like a photograph

by Erin Laarman

Home is like a photograph. It captures all the meaningful moments and memories of people’s lives for them to hold and cherish. Home is where the sounds of your younger sister screaming at the top of her lungs combine with the sound of your mom yelling at you to clean up your room. Home can be a hectic and a striking pain to your ears, or it can be a quiet and relaxing place. It is a place where you can come back to after being out in the frosty, crisp air. You can take off your hat and mittens and sit down by the fireplace. The flames and heat giving your body shivers as you drink hot coca, carefully, making sure you don’t burn your tongue from the heat. Or it can be the sound of dishes breaking, dogs barking, parents fighting and true chaos! Home can be considered many different things in everyone’s own opinion. But even throughout all the difference in homes, everyone would agree with the fact that there is no place like home. It is a familiar place where you can be yourself and allow yourself to just "let go". You can’t act the way you want and feel completely comfortable with being anywhere but home. Being away from home is like being pushed off the diving board and into the deep end of a pool. It is a stretch for you and you are nervous about taking that first move off. It requires a "push" or someone to throw you into a new situation of unfamiliar faces and voices. Once "thrown in", you experience change. It may be a good change, or possibly a bad change. But, what that does for you is it makes you confident that you can handle new situations thrown at you unexpectedly, which would help you in the "real world". After being away from home, no matter how good the experience may be, returning home is always a relief. Returning home is like taking a shower! You can relieve yourself of all the changes that had happened to you and return to the old, normal you. Home is a place of relaxation, business, love and care and will always hold a special place in your heart.