Home

What constitutes a home? Before I came to college, I always thought I'd know Virginia was home, and college would just be like a vacation or an extended trip. But now that I'm here and I've been back Home, I felt bad referring to BYU as "home", but I realized that BYU has become my home as well. I remember one time at Youth Conference, we were divided up into "families" and assigned a couple from the stake as our "parents". Everyone else immediately started calling them "Mom" & "Dad", but I was always never into that type of thing. I had friends at home who called other friends' moms "Mom" too... like "Momma Carwile" and "Momma Betty" and stuff, and I thought that was so inappropriate. But for some reason, it just felt natural after a couple days at YC to call my groupleaders "Mom" & "Dad". They were so kind, and I loved them. Then when I came to BYU, it again felt comfortable to call my FHE leaders "Mom" & "Dad". I don't know if I should be happy about that, because I've heard we're not supposed to do so.... I don't know. And then today I had to go upstairs to the 3200 floor to use their bathroom, because cleaning time always happens to dawn right when I return home from the morning's classes... it was my first time doing that, I usually hate doing stuff like that, I think it's weird, so I just wait, but I couldn't today. Right when I got upstairs, I just got this weird feeling... like it wasn't home. It was set up the exact same as our 2200 hall, but it wasn't mine. It wasn't home.

So my question is... am I just becoming a lazy person succumbing to the trends of society, calling people "Mom" & "Dad" left and right, and throwing "home" out with no thought of where it lands, or am I just realizing a different definition of these terms? Do "Mom" & "Dad" mean people that you love and have taught and advised you, or just the people that gave life to you? Does "home" mean where you are comfortable and loved, or just the building in which you spent most of your life?