I’ve had this idea for a post for a while, just something that’s been nagging me in the back of my mind. What is the difference between two words that seem easily interchangeable and so similar that it doesn’t matter?

The definition of the word “House,” according to Vocabulary.com, is “ building in which something [or someone] is sheltered or located.” The website gives an example,
“A house is a building where you might live alone, or it could be a multi-family house that you share with other families. If you live in an apartment building, that’s “home,” but it’s not a house.”
In turn, the definition of the word “Home,” according to the same website, is “where one lives at a particular time.”
While I don’t outright object to these definitions, I find there’s a more personal meaning to the word home than just a temporary place of living. Home and house don’t seem to differ, but to me, a house is just what Vocabulary.com makes it out to be- but a home is completely different.

An example of a house to me is my real house (don’t get me wrong- it’s a home to me too!), which is the place where I reside and that supplies all my physical needs. In a way, it’s a bad example, because although I don’t have many friends local that I’m in touch with, I still can contact my close friends online from my house, which supplies the requirements of being ‘home.’ And of course, my family are also a form of the home, which is why where I live is a bad example of this. (However, I don’t really have anywhere else to use as an example for house, so…)

An example of a home to me is, you guessed it, Yunasa West. I’ve written a few times about this camp, and I’ll link the posts at the bottom of this one, so you don’t have to see me go through the whole explanation again. I’ve been there four times so far, the latest time being just the tenth of June, of this year! I have made so many real, true friends there, and I felt at peace and understood in that amazing community, surrounded by peers and friends of my age, which to me is priceless. Being able to laugh and talk with friends, without having to think about what I say or feel like I have to hide – that’s how Yunasa is home to me.

So, what would I define a house as? “A place in which one lives that provides one’s physical and intellectual requirements.”

And home? Home would be, “A place or community that gives one their social, emotional, and intellectual requirements, where one feels like they fit in with the others by being themselves.”

So, what do the words house and home mean to you? Maybe they’re the same thing, maybe the technical definition, or maybe something completely different?

Yunasa Posts:

On My Way Home: https: //unchartedjourney.com/on-my-way-home/

Yunasa: A Place for Everyone: https://unchartedjourney.com/yunasa-a-place-for-everyone/