It Feels Like Home

Sometimes it’s a person, a smell, or a place that makes us feel like home. Outer Banks, North Carolina feels like home to me. I typically blog about these places that I’ve never been to, but this week I wanted to talk about how one place felt more like home than any other place in this world. I went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina after graduating with my family. I was leaving for college, and it was my last family vacation. I never knew one big family could do so many things in one week, but we managed happily.

In North Carolina we spent hours past the sand dunes on the beach embracing the rays of the sun, searching the long sea that never seems to end, waiting for the ghost crabs to come out at night, and sharing some of the best memories of growing up. It was such an unbelievable feeling for me to be somewhere so new, and feel like I’ve known it my whole life. North Carolina felt like home to me, and that wasn’t a feeling I knew to be so strong until I felt it. It was the safest feeling in the world, and I just knew that’s where home would be one day.

 

The sand dunes were like a little trail to what I see as heaven on earth: the beach. It was cold water like New England, but rays of sun as strong as Florida. Living in Florida, then moving here to New England, really conflicted me on where I’d like to settle with a family and a husband for the rest of my life. North Carolina, you are that place.

We had so many adventures that summer.  It was where I went on my first ferry boat ride with my little mermaid (my sister). It was where I walked the sand dunes for the first time. It was where I saw my very first ghost crab. All of these small things mean so much to me because it’s who I am. I love to travel, and in North Carolina I can take the Ferry to different islands. I love to be around the ocean and its graceful animals. I love being on those sand dunes, feeling the sand beneath my feet.

I look at my little sister and I just see so much happiness. She is a little traveler just like her big sister.  I call her my little mermaid. We were raised to be little mermaids, and we really were that summer. We spent hours in the water talking about where we would swim to if we were to ever be mermaids. I told her we could go anywhere, as long as we stopped in the Outer Banks of North Carolina first. By water, by bus, by plane, I’ll be home one day.