To be home...

Context: I currently rent a room in a house down in Dorchester.

In August, a few days before I started my current job, I had a "holy crap I'm employed again" barbecue. It was a pretty small gathering on short notice, and people came and went throughout the day. At around 10pm or so, there were a few people left, and a couple of people who came much later in the day. Therefore, I had about five hungry people in my kitchen in the late evening, and I didn't have anywhere to go the next day. Cooking for them seemed like the obvious answer.

So, I got to stand in the kitchen, cooking-show style, in front of the stove with pots and pans and other implements of destruction, talking, hanging out, and and cooking for my friends. I believe there was kielbasa involved.

Pause: mmmmm... kielbasa.

I don't hold title to a domicile, but for just a few minutes there, I felt like I was being a true host, welcoming people into my home, and providing for them.

Damn, that made me happy. The last time I felt I was in something that was my home, as opposed to "the place I rent, where I sleep and store my stuff", was probably in high school when I still lived with my parents.

Home is a place where they have to take you in.
Home is a place where you can shut out the world, if only for a little while.
Home is a state of being.
Home is a pocket universe. Time out of time.
Home is my place.

I don't have one of those yet. There's a small part of me that's scared that I'll never have one. I don't know what I need. It's entirely possible that it boils down to the need for a place with absolute safety, which is an artifact of childhood, and there's no hope of getting it back.

Query: How do you make someplace feel like home?