house and home

House. Home. I've always used both these words interchangeably. But once I got to thinking about it I realized what a vast difference lies between these two supposedly interchangeable words: House. Home. 

My dictionary tells me the house is a "structure serving as an abode of human beings." Okay. So what then is the definition of home? Is it the same? The answer comes to me instantly. No. I don't need a dictionary to understand the difference between the two. For "home" carries with it all the resonance of emotion attachment. 

A house is just that- an architectural edifice. It becomes a ''home" when we begin to associate emotions with it. A home is a sanctuary, a refuge. The place where you belong, which belongs to you. The transition from making a house into a home is a psychological one. It is the one place which you can step into and leave the world outside. Where so much of your identity resides. And a house is just a structure, a building till you make it a home. When you step into your home you expect to leave your cares behind, to drop that shield you wear through the day; to close the door on the outside world. 

Since time immemorial both humans and animals alike have craved a nesting place, a lair, a den, a place to call their own. It is this nesting instinct that makes us turn houses into homes, to fill inanimate structures with ourselves, to bring to it the peculiar essence we call personality. And it is precisely when houses become imbued with our personalities that they become our homes.  Our hidey- holes. 

So the next time you say house, think. Is it your house or your home? A structure you inhabit or a place you belong? A concrete shell or an extension of your self? Your sanctuary your refuge or a four walled structure you occupy? For therein lies the world of difference. And that is the difference you bring to bricks and mortar.