The Square Footage Didn’t Change

Tonight was the first night I looked around my small apartment and forgot it was an apartment.

It felt like a home. And not just any home, but my home.

It’s peaceful and cozy and comfortable and functional and beautiful my way.

I haven’t had a home for a very long time, at least eight years.

I’m happy.

The square footage didn’t change tonight. The lease didn’t change. I didn’t suddenly acquire a house. My relationship with the space changed.

I’ve been making hundreds of little decisions—moving a bowl because the corner was too dark, finding something old and useful instead of buying plastic, figuring out where plants should live, making my balcony someplace I actually sit, baking bread, filling a freezer with food I’ve prepared, putting things around myself because I find them beautiful rather than because they’re fashionable.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, I stopped occupying an apartment and started living in my home.

What I’ve been building isn’t really about bowls or balcony lights or bread or plants. Those things are the evidence of something happening within myself.

For a long time, “home” felt like something determined by circumstances—a particular house, relationship, family structure, or season of life.

I’m now discovering that I can create home.

I can make myself dinner because it’s worth making. Put flowers somewhere because I enjoy seeing them. Go for a walk and find hidden treasures to snap photos of. Spend Saturday morning with coffee and my dog. Write. Read my Bible. Golf. Grow herbs. I get to decide who and what gets my time.

And perhaps that’s why the apartment suddenly stopped feeling like an apartment tonight.

I belong here.

Not necessarily forever. I may someday have my garden and bigger kitchen. But wherever I go next, I’ll bring home with me.

Because I’ve rediscovered home within myself.