Part of what we know home to be is memory.

We know these memories from both our personal experiences as well as our collective unconscious: the universal, inherited memories that are imbedded in us from being human.

In our personal memories, we might recall home as extremely pleasant, bringing forward intense feelings of joy and happiness. Sometimes our memories can bring up a bittersweet feeling of nostalgia, with an aching desire to recreate that distant version with something comforting and familiar.

Sometimes our memories of home are unpleasant. We may feel grief and sadness, maybe even fear. We may be missing a past part of ourselves that used to exist in an old space to which we are no longer connected. We may desperately want to return, or we may desperately want to never experience that version of home again.

In our collective unconscious, we remember home on a human level. A nesting space full of comfort, safety, and all of our things. A place we return to. A way to be of ourselves, with ourselves and by ourselves. A respite from the outside world. And on a very basic needs level, home is survival.

Our memories affect how we experience our homes in our present moments. We are not separate from home-whatever form it happens to be at any particular time in our lives. Large, small, temporary, shared, decorated or not. Home is a place that will always be with us, that will always be a memory. Home is, in essence, woven into the very fabric of of our being.