After I bid goodbye to one of my roommates one Saturday, unsurprisingly, familiar feelings washed over me. It was sadness coupled with distress; a void that had expanded just a little bit. I didn’t have to think too hard to put a name on it.

I was homesick.

During school days, it’s easy to place home at the back of my mind because I’m surrounded by wonderful friends. Living away from family is also a liberating experience. As an independent person, I can go wherever I want, whenever I want. Distraction is easy to achieve.

The weekends, however, are a different story. Most of the people I know go home to their province and see their families, while I’m stuck in a highly populated and heavily polluted city, alone in a condominium. The nights become cold and harsh. Looking at my roommates’ empty beds at night, homesickness gnaws at me.

In my constant attempt to focus solely on my academic work than miss home, I have also allowed myself to contemplate the predicament I often find myself in. When we are asked about our home, it’s not unusual to think of a physical place. It’s not unusual to think of the place where we grew up in. I am reminded of what one of my philosophy professors told our class: The root word of tahanan, the Filipino word for home, is tahan. “Tahan na,” we say to our friend who is crying and seeking solace. Home is a place of comfort.

But home shouldn’t be limited to space.

I say this as it is not possible for home to be conceived only as a physical place, as an address. Say, for example, a child who faces physical or emotional abuse in the place he or she goes to at the end of the day. Given what a home is supposed to embody, can this person truly call this place home? Does this person feel accepted, loved, and safe?

In this case, one can say that perhaps what makes a home home are the people living inside it. It is the mother or the father who wakes up early and helps their child prepare for school by making them breakfast, the sibling who offers you words of encouragement and advice, or the ate yaya who, although not biologically related to you, held your hand on your first day of kindergarten and has been your friend since childhood.

I believe that more than having four walls and a roof over your head, home is with whomever you are wholly accepted and loved unconditionally. Home is with whomever you feel safe.

For many, the friends with whom they’ve formed a deep bond is home. It is the people who you’ve laughed and smiled and cried with, it is the people who have seen your unrestrained anger and the ugly side of your personality, yet accept you anyway.

For some, home is with someone they ardently love. Home is in soft kisses. Home is in the space between intertwined fingers. I take refuge in this person.

So while I often think of the vast fields of grass and trees that line up my street, my mother who welcomes me at the doorway after a time spent apart, my father in his study room reading one of his old books, the pale yellow and gold wallpaper of my room and the scent of orchids, standing in front of me now are the friends who I’ve learned to care for and who likewise continually accept me and my story. I’ve found a home.