6 reasons for leaving your house

Today, let there be throats singing and minds twirling at the promise of springtime in the woodland. I, a natural homebody, have learned over time that I need both here and there in equal measure before I can say I feel good enough. Sometimes, I forget it because I am so used to longing for home when I am not home and then when I am here, I wonder how much better I might feel if I were there. A conundrum of the city dweller and prairie minded woman, I suppose.

I used to stay home every night, never leaving my own cocoon of safety, sacrificing friendships and time spent exploring so I could be by myself. I thought it was near impossible to bring this inner world into the outer world and so I feared it. I spent hours in my room, making messes, feeling warm in the cheek as I laughed at my own jokes and invented my own wellspring of fun. I did not need anybody else, for anybody else could mean expectations and expectations were dangerous for the creative spirit, or so I thought. It took two hands and one banjo for me to realize that leaving home could mean the difference between an echo and a song. If I wanted to sing and reach from the grave that is loneliness, I needed a place to do so and that place couldn't only be where pillows lie or dresses hang in closets. 

When I started leaving here for there, I realized just how much a human can take of breaking free from the starting point you cling onto because it seems easy. I will always be a homebody at heart, a delicate way of being inherited from my mother — but leaving showed me how far I could stretch to taste this life and at the end of each day, places are always made sweeter when it's not the only place you visit, a person always made wiser by doing what they think they cannot do.

From one homebody to another, here are 6 reasons why leaving your house can be a good thing.

• You never know who you're going to meet. Yes — people can drain your energy reserves and make you want to put on running shoes and head for the hills, but they can also teach you, love you, and add birdseed and flowers to the unknown road that is life.
• Leaving home doesn't have to be forever and life doesn't have to be measured by homebody vs those who appear shinier when around others. Know your own limits and stretch it ever so slightly so you can enjoy the best of each world.
• Take a break from our own minds. Go to a coffee shop by yourself and eat a dessert, listen to the faintest sound of chatter, see how people are moving about, put your phone away and sit in that moment.
• Inspiration can come from anywhere. If you are always occupying the same spaces, you are likely to have the same thoughts, exploring somewhere new can bring you all sorts of untouched ways of seeing the world. 
• Adventure — whether in the woods or in the city, whether scenery or people, stepping outside of your comfort zone can kick start your heart and who knows what will grow from it.
• You can always go home. Don't let anybody tell you that once you are out, you have to stay out. If you aren't having any fun, if anxiety is rising, or if you just cannot wait to hold the next chapter of a book or a film in your knuckles, go home. You tried. There will be other times and friends worth having will allow you to be you. 

To further prove how much I cling to home is to tell you how much trouble I ran into coming up with this list. If it weren't in argument of leaving home but instead for staying, it would probably come to 100 reasons or so. Now, I'm off to put the kettle on because home is where I'll be today.

Let me know your own reasons for going or staying in the comments - I am curious!

outfit details: thrifted value village blouse, montana tack store lace up boots, indigo chapters music notebook, shade of a bonsai constellation/zodiac brooch

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