We often chase “home” like it’s a destination on a map — but what if home isn’t where you arrive, but what you learn along the way?
It’s easy to romanticize home as a physical place—a zip code, a style of house, the scent of a forest you grew up in. But pursuing home is deeper. It’s the feeling of being grounded and known—even if no one around you knows your maiden name.
Pursuing home is an act of bravery.
It’s saying yes to what calls your spirit—even if it doesn’t look like what you pictured.
It’s learning to exhale again.
The Pacific Northwest
The Pacific Northwest was my home for over 45 years. Moss, mist, and the smell of cedar and the briny Puget Sound — I know this place in my bones.
But last month, when I stepped off the plane in Washington, I expected that familiar rush — that first inhale of cedar-scented air that always whispered you’re home now. You’re back.
Nothing.
Just… air. Regular air.
I wandered my parents’ garden at sunrise, the one I could walk blindfolded. The birds were doing their early chatter, the dew still clung to the maple trees, and the tall evergreens swayed just like they always have. My soul knows this place. Yet still — nothing.
As I sat with my coffee and morning prayers, I noticed my thoughts drifting — not toward the fir trees but toward the desert. Toward Arizona. Toward home.
A place I once swore I could never live—too dry, too brown, too different. But life (and cancer, and reinvention, and love) had other plans. Steve and I traded the damp green for the dry red. We left our comfort zone to follow something we didn’t fully understand yet.
It’s strange, isn’t it? That a place you never expected to love can slip into your bones so quickly. And it surprised me. How a place I never even planned to love somehow claimed me. How it took coming back to the familiar to realize that my roots had quietly spread somewhere new. That it takes coming home to realize you’ve already found it somewhere else.
The Desert Whispered Back
Steve and I have had a hell of a time adjusting to life in the desert. We left behind family, friends, and forty years of comfort. We questioned our sanity more times than I can count. There were lonely nights where we whispered “what were we thinking?”.
But slowly, the desert whispered back.
And something inside me stilled.
And somewhere between the saguaros and the wide-open desert sky — we found peace. We found home.
Growth is messy.
Change is uncomfortable and hard.
New landscapes don’t hand you a welcome mat. You have to earn it. Sometimes with patience. Sometimes with tears. And yes — sometimes there are actual rattlesnakes involved.
We made the right choice.
My heart feels settled. My soul feels still.
Home, it turns out, isn’t just where you came from.
Sometimes it’s where you stop resisting.
My First Home
I was born in Dallas, raised in Texas humidity and summer camp sweat. My roots run deep there. A few years ago, I drove my oldest “man cub” to his new home in Austin. As we crossed into Austin County, I rolled down the window and inhaled. The thick, humid air, the smell of hot asphalt and barbecue smoke — it grounded me instantly.
Home.
My southern drawl slipped back in without effort. My body relaxed into the familiarity of heat and cicadas and wide skies. Leaving my boy in that strange new city didn’t feel scary anymore. I knew he’d find his footing. His people. His home. And my mama heart overflowed with joy.
Pursuing home is not for the faint of heart.
Over 52 years, I’ve lived in four states, in houses that fit like favorite jeans and others that felt like someone else’s shoes. Home, I’ve learned, isn’t always a house. It’s not even a zip code. It’s the feeling of being grounded and known — that quiet exhale that whispers, you’re safe here.
Pursuing Home
Pursuing home takes courage. It takes curiosity. It takes time. And it takes a whole lot of grace — for yourself and the process.
At Wholehearted Life, we believe the search for home is a lifelong adventure— grounded in courage, curiosity, and adventure. Because it’s always about the journey, not the destination. It’s less about finding the perfect place and more about letting yourself belong — wherever your heart finally decides to land.
So tell me — where is your home?
Where do you feel most content, most alive, most you?
Where does your soul settle?
And what might it take to get there?
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