make yourself at home

how do we extrapolate the parts of life that soothe us and make us feel at ease?

Occasionally stripping ourselves of the comfort of familiarity allows us to activate an internal sense of security. It gives us space to cultivate the feeling of home so we can carry it through the changing tides of our lives. It’s been a full year since I gave my apartment up, since we deconstructed my bed and packed my books away - one year of living out of a suitcase and following the wind. When you uproot your life and scatter your belongings, the idea of “settling” takes on a whole new meaning. It no longer has the ugly undertone of giving up on something greater. Instead, it calls to mind an image of sediment swirling around in a jar full of water and finally sinking slowly toward the bottom, piece by piece, until there is stillness. I shook the jar of my being violently and had to sit and sit and sit until the storm finally calmed inside of me. 

Traveling for a prolonged period reminded me that home is hardly a place at all. We build our homes in hearts and familiar voices, in the arms of the people we love, feelings hidden in our artifacts and unlocked by sentimentality. Removed from even those, we can develop steadiness in our routines - when we brew morning coffee, take a breath to get grounded or prepare to rest our heads as evenings wind down. Home is in our habits and the people we hold close to us, supported by the ways we love. In an ideal world, it is where you’re able to activate your parasympathetic nervous system with ease, to rest and digest. There is a sense of comfort fortified by safety and security. 

The first time I planted seeds of life in a new city, I had an opportunity to conduct a conscious study of my own contentment. In a moment of unprecedented loneliness, removed from everything and everyone I had ever known, I distilled the elements of my happiness into a simple list that could be referenced when I needed to be soothed:

(lol young nat - get buff as fuck, okay)

It was a lesson on the importance of cultivating simple, grounding rituals that can be a source of support in challenging moments. You don’t have to go anywhere else to learn the value of honoring your needs and maintaining emotional equilibrium. The proverbial ~comfort zone~ used to seem to me like a dangerous, sheltered place because we are told that all that all good things are on the other side of discomfort. I’ve since learned that on the other side of discomfort is actually just deeper and more expansive comfort, a sense of ease where there wasn’t one before and a new awareness of what we are capable of confronting.

I am now tasked with building something new in the negative space of my personal comfort zone, within the confines of my childhood bedroom that has long been overgrown with belongings not mine. Since I returned to New York, these walls have held a mirror up to ask me how I've changed, if I've been happy, what I'm looking for in life. It has shown me how I fit differently here now, with deeper awareness of my internal state and the ways it can be agitated or soothed.

This is not to minimize the significance of environment - it’s necessary to recognize the symbiotic nature of our external and internal landscapes - but it’s worth reflecting on the small things you can incorporate to bring you little bits of joy, no matter where you are. These are the ways you can make yourself at home.