where the heart is

Ty asked me last night what my opinion was of "Home is where the heart is."

I'll try and explain my idea of home right now...

Home, most definitely, is where the heart is. If your heart isn't in something, it'll never be your home. For me, at this moment, home is Oakdale. It's where my heart is and it's where I've had my heart for my whole life.

Ty was worried because he said his home is back here, in Pittsburgh. He's right, at this moment his heart is still here, and that means this is still his home. He said that he doesn't think he'll ever feel completely at home at Xavier. I told him that's normal. When you have an upbringing like Ty and I have where you love where you live, it's very hard to up and leave.

You have memories here and to move to Cincinnati for a week and expect it to feel like home is insane.

If Pittsburgh is always going to be your home that's fine, you just need to accept that and be able to have a home away from home. College, if you aren't going to school near home, is a home away from home. Or if you want, it can be a vacation. Call it what you want, you just need to know what you're getting yourself into.

Pittsburgh will always be home for some, no matter where they live. They'll always have that yearning to come back. Some others though, some others will make a new home in a new city.

Right now I can't say whether or not I'll make my home here in Pittsburgh or somewhere else. It'll depend where my job takes me and where my family is comfortable settling. I think I could be happy in any city as long as i had those I loved with me.

That's another point Ty brought up. He said he wants to come back here because that's where his friends are. 
I said, "You're wrong, that's where your friends were."

For the next two weeks we will be here, but after that we're gone to our own homes away from home.

Life in Imperial will never be the same as before we left for college. That's the truth. I'd say it's the sad truth, but it isn't sad. It'd be sad if life didn't go on, but life always goes on.  That doesn't mean it won't still be beautiful. Or that it won't be happy.

Times change and people leave, but happiness never has to. 

What once made us happy might change, or might leave, but we never have to be unhappy. Find new things that make you happy and surround yourself with them.

Live a happy life in whatever city you're dragged into. 

Don't dwell on the place that happiness once existed. Instead, bring happiness with you as a constant companion that travels everywhere you do. 

NP: One Year,  Six Months- Yellowcard