I find myself fascinated with both of these types of people and personally I think I fall right in the middle. Not too original, I realize. But for the longest time I believed myself to be more nomadic. Guess it depends on how you define it.
Some definitions (according to yours truly):
Homebody: Someone who prefers to be at home more than not. (Straightforward.) These are the people who plan a vacation months (or years) ahead and it’s usually a week at a resort in Cuba or Mexico complete with jam-packed checked luggage to ensure that maximized comfort has accompanied them for the week away from the home base. They tend to go home after work instead of city-wide detours and weekends are often spent in or around their beds. Personally, I don’t (entirely) understand this way of life but I respect it. One of my best friends, C, is a homebody. She’ll go on the occasional after-work detour with me for drinks or even a weekend camping or N.Y.C. excursion, but for the most part home base is preferred. She will also check said luggage on a trip to said resort.
Nomad: Someone mostly on the go. Someone who spends more than (let’s say) half of each month somewhere other than home. Meanwhile, said home tends to be sparsely populated with personal effects and acts more as a storage facility for secondary necessities (a.k.a. winter essentials in the summer and vice versa.) At that point I think, “why even pay rent? …do you even pay rent?” My friend O realized the other day that over the past month, he has spent less than a week at home. Though his situation is mostly work related, it’s definitely nomadic nonetheless. Then there’s nomadic at heart. This is someone who works the office job but ghosts immediately at the 5:00 mark. The “weekend nomads” if you will. Those who will head out after work on Friday and come home Sunday night in preparation for the 9-5. (Me.)
My apartment is nowhere near sparsely populated (yet miles from cluttered) and I find myself drawn to the familiarity of home and the feeling of being grounded. Yet in every place I visit, I seem to find that feeling of home. After 24 hours in Barcelona I’m convinced that La Sagrada Familia Basilica is my new parish and after 10 minutes in Manhattan I’m walking to the 6 train en route to Trader Joe’s for groceries. Hence the homebody/nomad confusion. If the weather is nice I will rarely go straight home after work and if I haven’t triple booked myself for the weekend in at least two different cities by Monday night, what is life even? But then Sunday night inevitably arrives and I sit there on the balcony, watching the sunset with a glass of wine in hand, lazily swayed by the rhythm of the patio swing, and I think, “wow, it’s so good to be home! I should do this more often!” just to seemingly wake up with amnesia and make ALL the plans all over again.
They say “home is where the heart is.” Where are you finding your heart these days?
