You are my home

I remember the first time I heard your voice. I can still remember telling you how soothing I found it, how much it calmed me. It still does, even though you are silent, but your words are still very much alive in me.

You are my home, even though the door is locked and the lights are off.

It is not a choice as much as a beautiful nagging that is nearly impossible to ignore. But I am locked out, left to wander, and I have found myself here. I know I left in a childish fit, and you locked the iron gate so tightly; you had to. Therefore I was left out in the darkness, just me and the shadows that haunted me, the ones that led me away from you to begin with. You left me outside to face them. You would not let me lean on you to deal with them anymore.

You are my home because you are the place I choose to return to over and over again. The place that, even it's painful, means the most.

You are my home because you have made me who I am, whether you realized what you were doing or not.

You are my home because you showed me the best kind of love. You showed me real, genuine, love-you-so-much-it-hurts-and-changes-me-at-my-core love. It was a blissful combination of finally feeling alive mixed with the most painfully difficult challenge I never thought I would have to deal with. I did not know I could ever feel so strong that I would end up there.

And yet, I still believe, that although that love may have been all of those challenging things, it was still unconditional, undeniable, and above all, beautiful. Miraculous. And that is what keeps me at your door.

I have found that, at the end of the day, what hurts me the most has been thinking I was not loved by the people I found myself inextricably bound to. In some cases, it was a biological attachment. But in our case, it was something that goes beyond that.

As if the longing for acceptance from the people we are most devoted to, body or soul, is the most painful thing when not reciprocated, and yet, we care so much it can haunt us for our whole lives, if we let it be. I wanted to let you know that the shadows in my life have been replaced. You exorcised them and your memory resides instead.