May 2026
With the internal (and external) pressure to be more social, I have to pause and consider:
What is really good for me, what gives me comfort, and where do I feel good?
These are difficult questions for me to answer. Sometimes I’ll be driving along and think “I just want to go home.” But not to my home, to a friend or family home, or to a home from childhood. I’m yearning for a place, a feeling that if I have felt it, I don’t remember. I have no context.
I need that feeling of home just as much as I need social interaction. And I forget that. Regularly.
I spend many hours (in the car and when I’m in pain) considering what home is. What feels good to me, what feels like me and what the heck is actually comforting, if I thought about it for more than two seconds?
First thing that comes to mind is, solitude and silence. (Which is the exact opposite of the calendar and connection thing I am also trying to work on.) For me, this isn’t about being alone. It is about being alone in a receptive state of mind. I control the input (and mostly lack thereof.) Solitude when I’m spiraling out – usually at night – is not the same. An if there is an input, it is one that I’ve consciously chosen for that moment, nature sounds or an old instrumental album.
The other things that bring me comfort: Soft things and textures. Blankets. Stuffed Animals. I find great comfort in stuffed animals though I know saying that as a 44 year old adult woman will get me some comments. They were a great comfort to me as an isolated child. They are a great comfort to me now, though I don’t let myself take comfort in them as much as I used to. They are all visible to me around my house. Still I don’t touch and hug as much as I could. And why not?! I can do what I want right? I’m a self-directed adult who doesn’t care what other people think. (Sort of.)
Comfort is also in the same foods, maybe in different guises but usually not. This might have more to do with the gastrointestinal stuff of midlife. Still there is a comfort that there will be food I enjoy. (And that doesn’t make me uncomfortable for hours after and into the next day.) No matter what the day or what is happening, I can count on that. And that is comfort.
It is in the individual things. I find places, even homes, have charges to them that may or may not be fully comforting. I know of some people who love where they are. I know others of us got where we are through maybe mixed blessing means. I’m still grateful to be here but hard to say it’s a “true heart choice” home. I don’t think that can really be decided (if it ever can) until decades later when you look back. So while I yearn for a place as one thinks of as home – with all the people and things along with it – that’s not just not something that’s going to happen for me.
The place, if you could call it that, I’m starting to come home to – and it’s tripping me out due to my challenging relationship with it – is my body. Yoga more regularly. Movement with whomever, wherever, whenever or by myself – that feels like home. Taking a shower, walking myself through the basics of daily care of body and space, these feel like home. The simple things, the things you can do and access no matter where you are physically or what is happening to you and around you. They feel like home to me.
I’ve tried hard to find comfort in the steady minutiae of daily life. It started when I had little to no control over my surroundings and life, kept going during some of the more challenging and dark times and still continues today. In the mundane-ness and constant repetitions of every day life, I forget that it is these exact things that bring me comfort. It is so much easier, in many ways, to say that this life event or this place brings me comfort, when really every day I can access millions of moments that could bring me comfort. If I could just let myself see them and feel them.
And writing, that brings me comfort. So I keep doing them – all the things, even when I can’t see the comfort, when I don’t want to do them. For practice, so maybe it will be easier one day.
I am grateful you read what I write but I don’t want that to be it for you. I want it to help you in some way. So at the end, some questions to think about.
This New Moon’s Listening Exercise
Do you have a “home”? Or have you ever had a “home”? What comes up with this word for you?
Where and what feels good to you? Can you list a few things? Or you need to think about it?
How does every day life feel? Is there a place you can find comfort no matter what is happening around you?
Keep Listening…