I have left my body and landed in heaven…more specifically, a renovated flat in London’s trendy-chic Shoreditch neighborhood. The ceilings are high, clean, and white, with classic molding borders on the tops of the walls. Chic magazine ads from French Vogue, British Bazaar, and The New York Times Fashion Magazine dot the walls. The candles, a Parisian brand called Diptyque, smell positively heavenly. There are curtains hung elegantly across the windows, shielding me from the grittiness of Mile-End Road. I am reclined on a bed with an abundance of soft sheets, plush comforters, and pillows. A perfect Friday morning…spent in an apartment that is 100% not mine.

I was reminded by how much I really appreciate the comforts of other’s homes when visiting a friend in London this past weekend—a displaced Parisian who is, by defunct, quite fashionable. Sitting in her room, I couldn’t help but recline and sigh, commenting on just how fabulous everything was. While she was in class, I reclined on a bed that seemed to have been made of clouds, taking in all of the comforts in a room that was not truly mine. It was a room filled with all the aesthetic pleasures that I profoundly love.

Have you ever had the premonition to make yourself at home in a living space that isn’t yours? If not, you should really try it. Having been out of school for over half a year now, I am well accustomed to the feeling of displacement. I am also inclined to make myself at home, very quickly, with friends and acquaintances. Ohio, Chicago, California, France…the vastly different landscapes of these regions blend quickly into a jumble of middle-American plains, Alpine mountains, and overpriced juice bars in the sacred and confusing space of my ever-changing memory. “Home” is a temporal feeling these days. The suburban enclave where I grew up holds little appeal beyond the enduring comfort of my childhood bed. The floral border has been removed from the wall of my room, and my muted beige walls are now more suited to visitors. Although it is the room in which I spent 15 years of my life, it no longer feels like mine. It feels like the room of a displaced young adult-child. This is why I take great pleasure in enjoying the rooms of those seemingly more settled that me, or at the very least those with nicer living spaces.

As a very poor post-grad student living in France—the land of impossibly tiny apartments—I do not have the luxury of enjoying a room of my own. My roommate and I share a doll-sized, off-white, ugly studio apartment, one of us sleeping in the “real” bedroom whilst the other makes herself at home in the living room/kitchen. Sleeping on the “clic-clac” (as the French call futons) is not terrible. The apartment is livable in the way that a ramshackle halfway house in RENT was livable. There are days when I really do miss my own space. Not to mention, I think this apartment is ugly as hell. The white walls always seem to be dirty, and there are spots on the sink and the shower that never quite come out. My comforter cost 20 Euros at a large outdoor market, and it is the texture of hay. There are many things I would change about this space. But I am busy, and more significantly, I am broke. Although I would like to be able to say, with the affect of an impossibly chic young urbanite, that I “starve for fashion,” at the end of the day, I chose food over a nice comforter.

Who am I to complain? A year spent living abroad in a first world country is hardly what many people would consider to be “roughing it,” and the older I get, the more cognizant I become of the fact that I have lived my life through the rose-colored filter of middle class comfort. The things I take for granted—a college education at the highly questionable value of $50,000, paid plane tickets for my “job” in Europe, money for the first month’s rent—are markers of privilege not afforded to everyone in the world. I should never complain. I should be grateful for this ugly, overpriced French studio. And alas, I keep coming back to this idea of “home.” The fact that the place I call “home” is not an environment I would rightly choose had I the means to live somewhere else. I would choose Diptyque candles. I would choose an elegant flat on London’s East End.

I am of the belief that no matter who you are, life is more interesting if viewed through the lens of your own glittering imagination. It doesn’t necessarily have to be white walls, linen sheets, and Parisian candles. It can be a view of the beach from your window. Space to breathe. Imaginative escape is really what makes everything that is mundane, grey, and terrible, all right after all. The fact that there are places in this world where one does find comfort is consolation to the truth that there will be times in life where one may feel dislocated and detached from home. One may have never even had a place to call home. This does not mean, however, that serenity, comfort, or a moment of contentment is far away. As you get older, home is no longer what it used to be. Things change, move, age, and fade…people do too. The one constant you have is your entirely active and constantly satisfying imagination. Make yourself at home inside your mind—and perhaps someone else’s apartment.