I’ve been up at Bearskin Meadow Camp– a camp for people living with type 1 diabetes– a lot this summer. One of the things that strikes me about being up here is how many people call this place home. Over and over again, I hear that coming to camp is coming home. It's a remarkable statement given that most people sleep on open-air decks, and almost everything is communal—the bathrooms, the dining, the living, and the activities. People spend, at most, a couple months here in the summer. Many of the traditional things we associate with home are absent: there is little private space, and creature comforts are fewer than we’re generally accustomed to, no one sleeps in their own bed, the food, routines, and activities are all different. And yet it feels like home.
A house, apartment, or a regular place to sleep does not really make a home. Home is a much more complicated concept. What makes home involves feelings of safety, belonging, and familiarity. Home is a place where we feel we can let our guard down—where the vulnerable parts of ourselves do not need protection, and we can be accepted as we are. At camp, a lot of this centers around a community that understands and accepts people living with type 1 diabetes. The radical acceptance of that extends further, though, to other parts of ourselves that often do not feel safe. That kind of emotional safety is one reason it feels like home.
While we often think of our home as “my space,” or “my home,” the reality is that home almost always involves other people (or sometimes pets).The safety and connection that makes home comforting usually does not come from solitude, but in connection. Home might be impossible to create alone. As difficult as it can sometimes be, shared work, shared meals, and shared bathrooms promote bonding, even when the environment is rugged. This isn’t unique to camp. The house we live in feels like home when it is shared with people we love. And the inverse is true: the place we live does not feel like home when it is not filled with people we love, and complicated still when the people we do love do not leave us feeling safe. When the place we call home does not feel like a safe, connected space, the entire concept rings hollow.
We sometimes idealize home as a place of rest; it might better be thought of as a place of growth. We strongly associate home with raising a family or with where we grew up. But our childhood—or raising children—is much less about rest or relaxation than about growth and transformation. This is a real paradox: growth involves discomfort and work, whereas home conjures up feelings of peace and ease. Growth brings satisfaction and meaning—but often only in retrospect. Part of the attachment we feel to home stems from the growth we have experienced.
Many of us carry multiple homes within us—each tied to a different part of who we are. As our identities shift over time, so too can our sense of home. We may find belonging in new communities or places that reflect who we’re becoming. Often, it’s not the territory that defines home, but the shared values, stories, and meaning we find with others. Being part of a group, or a family, is a key component of feeling at home. We might call America our home, or California our home, or a neighborhood or city or an address. There’s no requirement to have just one.
That sense of belonging, however, is fragile. It depends not only on how we see ourselves, but on being seen and accepted by the group. When we lose that recognition—when we’re excluded or no longer feel welcome—it can feel like being exiled from a part of ourselves. Home, then, is not just a place of comfort, but of mutual acknowledgment and inclusion. Without that, even familiar places can become foreign. This can happen when the values or beliefs of others in the group change. When the beliefs we previously shared are no longer held in common, the sense of home and belonging we have often leaves us, and the attachment to home weakens.
And when we don't have it, or when it’s lost, the loss cuts deep. Without home, we become untethered. Without belonging, even beautiful or familiar places feel hollow. Home is not just where we rest—it’s where we return, where we are remembered, where we matter.
This is why the idea of home carries a kind of moral weight. To call something home is to claim it—and to be claimed by it. It implies responsibility. Home is not just what we receive from a place or a group, but what we invest into it. We must protect it, tend to it, and pass it on. Losing that is losing a part of ourselves.
And yet there’s a paradox: to truly feel at home, we can’t fully possess it. We can’t own the people who make a place feel like home. Home is created through relationships—through the trust, connection, and shared meaning we build with others. It is given and received, not taken. At its heart, home is not about possession. It’s about belonging.
Cheers,
Doc
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