Mom: Her hands quiver like brittle leaves when you tell her that you’re leaving.

Dad: He suddenly stops talking to you but comes around eventually because you’re his little girl, the apple of his eye; the biggest source of his joy. Even so he constantly reminds you of all of the dangers looming in the alleys of the Big City of the shady men in long black trench coats, camouflaged between the layered brick walls. When you’re going out, he reminds you that you’re going to have to fight bravely.

Home: An oxymoron of some of the greatest, strangest times of our lives. We laugh, cry and grow. Home is where you become the smart and independent brilliant being that you are. Home means something different to each of us. For you it may be a collection of Easters and Christmas mornings that you’ve artistically captured and displayed on shelves. For him, home is the endless Monday bustle, mismatched socks, getting ready for school, goodbye kisses and I love you notes that mom folded and tucked in his lunch bag. And for her, it may be the endless nights, hiding in reading books, whispering to herself, “Just one more chapter,” that leaves her eyes already pooling with tears.

For me, home is a land that is rooted in deep affection for my family. A world of tremendous beauty that simultaneously makes me weep, shudder, and smile. Honestly, there is no way of expressing all the tremendous, infinite beauty that she has bestowed upon me.

Home is also a collection of mom and dad’s tales of youth and their proud stories of ancient customs, elaborately displayed on the dining room table like an Easter lunch. The customs I see that they wear on their fingers, in their eyes and postures.

Home is one of my greatest educators in life and where I find my own true identity. The pride I own in who I am. At home I grow and keep on striding in a forward direction. This home cannot be compressed into mere words for its kaleidoscopic illustrious; an intricate fusion of emotion.

But in the home where I found myself swimming in freedom, I would sometimes find myself battling to gasp for air. Deep inside I’d hear a voice of some girl with clenched fists she’d keep banging and beating up against my ribcages yelling, “Let me out, let me out, let me out!”

At some point we have got to leave home and comfortability to start home somewhere new.

Sometimes home is a ruthless prosecutor that keeps you shackled and imprisoned. It prohibits you from experiencing the warmth of another home where you are truly destined to be. Sometimes home is fearful that you may forget who she is. So she wants to keep you here where she knows you won’t ever leave.

Little does home know that here fearless flame will eternally burn within you; that her flame will always dance with feeling, purpose and vitality. That parts of her, you will always synthesise in all those new places that may be home to you someday too.

Home – they say – is where the heart is and indeed because the essence of her is distinct, original and unpolluted.

Tell us: What are your thoughts about the place called home?