Welcome Home (and what that actually means)
Last week, during an interview for an oral history project about the San Ramon Valley, I was asked a simple question:
“What does home mean to you? How would you describe being home?”
I wasn't prepared for how deeply that question would touch me.
I've spent much of my adult life helping people buy and sell homes and helping them find their place in this world. I've walked through thousands of houses and, more times than I can count, said to a buyer as they receive the keys to their front door: “Welcome home!”
But last week, I realized I had never really stopped to think about what those words mean to me.
I do now.
Growing up in Redondo Beach, I don't think I fully understood what “home” meant. But I had the beach. The beach was my escape, my playground and my safe place.
As a child, and even as a young adult after college, I didn't understand how important it is to feel truly at home. I certainly didn't understand the depth of the words “Welcome home.”
Today, I do.
For me, home is my safe place in this world. It is my family. It is my dear friends. It is the people and community connections that have accumulated over decades and become part of who I am.
And it is this place.
It is Mt. Diablo. It is walking through Las Trampas Wilderness Regional Park and along the Iron Horse Trail. It is Saturday morning at the Farmers Market. It is walking down Hartz Avenue in Danville and allowing the memories of so many years to wash over me.
It is the accumulation of experiences—big moments and small ones—that eventually becomes something difficult to define, but unmistakable when you feel it.
Belonging.
Perhaps that is what we are really searching for when we search for a home. Not simply four walls, a roof, a kitchen and a bedroom. We are searching for our place in this world. A place where we belong.
A place where we can exhale. A place where we feel known. A place where we don't have to perform. A place where we can simply be ourselves.
That's what makes the words “Welcome home” so powerful.
When we say them sincerely, we aren't simply welcoming someone into a house. We are saying:
I'm glad you're here.
You belong here.
You can rest here.
You can be yourself here.
For someone moving to our region of the East Bay, those words can be difficult to fully understand when they first arrive.
When a buyer purchases a home here and we hand them the keys, we might say, “Welcome home!” And we mean it. But we also know something they don't know yet.
They haven't experienced Saturday mornings at the Farmers Market. They haven't discovered their favorite walk. They haven't watched Mt. Diablo change colors with the seasons. They haven't developed the friendships, routines and memories that slowly connect them to this place.
They haven't accumulated the experiences.
That takes time.
A house can become your home on the day you move in. But belonging takes longer.
It grows through ordinary days and unexpected moments. Through raising children, making friends, walking the trails, participating in the community and simply living life.
Eventually, the place becomes part of you. You stop simply living in a place. You begin living with it.
And perhaps that is one of the great gifts of living somewhere for a long time. The things that once made the place feel new and special eventually become woven into your everyday life.
Last week's interview reminded me not to take that for granted. It reminded me why I have such a deep connection to this Valley, and why helping someone find a home here means much more to me than helping them buy a house.
Someday, I hope those new residents will walk down Hartz Avenue, look up at Mt. Diablo, take a morning walk on the Iron Horse Trail or simply sit outside on a beautiful evening and realize something they couldn't possibly have understood on the day we handed them their keys.
They will realize that they aren't simply living in their new house.
They are home.
And then, perhaps, the words will finally have the meaning I understand today:
Welcome home.