When I was younger, I had a lot of issues with constipation. I guess I didn’t deal well with changes, or with leaving what I was comfortable with. I didn’t like to leave home.

Growing up, traveling with family was nice. But for some reason everyone’s bodies locked up. The body didn’t like the change either.

It was thanks to Dad’s intense morning rituals, developed through years of clinical trials with a sample-size of one, that I was not bound up. The prunes came wherever we went.

I kept this routine for a while — it worked. It counteracted the inevitable effects the mentality that fear of change or lack of ‘comfort’ brought: complete disruption of the digestive system (diarrhea if you were on the lucky side).

When I went to college, it became my home and my comfort, and there, my bowels were free. I would return to my parents’ home from school, and be bound for 14 days straight. The body talks. A lot. And it speaks the truth.

Years later, on my own, I had a loose sense of home. I learned to seek change. Suppression craves expansion.

I started to travel alone. Fear came along, but so did awe, curiosity, excitement and more. I didn’t have a handle on it though, and when I’d arrive back to my little room in the Navajo Nation government housing after a trip, everything would relax. My body would let go.

Safety, predictability, comfort, home.

I was a trained puppy. As soon as I saw the front lawn, the cue to rest, digest, and eliminate finally happened. Many humans who are attached to ‘place’ work this way.

Time has passed and I haven’t dropped the fear of change completely. I certainly haven’t dropped the craving for freedom either. And after backpacking the world, a sense of home doesn’t exist.

For the last few months, I’ve been in one place, toying with the idea of home again.

Safety, predictability, comfort.

The idea is nice, and then I try to shimmy out of my skin if I entertain it too long.

Funny enough, during my time in the most recent ‘home’ my well-trained elimination system has slowed and almost stopped.

Each day in my ‘home’ feels like a blessing and a curse. My spirit is ready to go, but I cannot say the same for my motility.

Stability isn’t all bad though — friends, income, groundedness, time to reflect, time to train. All things I’m happy about.

Being still and moving are healthy in their own ways.

Today, I left for a trip. Not for work, not for service, just for me. I feel afraid. I still crave order and routine (and also actively resist it). I do crave home.

As I drove away from ‘home’ the familiar feeling of the freedom of traveling returned. My cells separated slightly in relief. And then, not an hour into my drive, after days of almost no motion, release came.

But it wasn’t because of safety or predictability.

For me, maybe I’m no different from when I first started traveling alone. Maybe now, all I’ve done is redefine what ‘home’ means. Home is where you feel free. Home is where you feel comfort. Home is where you let go.

But home isn’t always a place. Sometimes it’s just within you.