"...I like to think that our house was where everybody could come together, no matter who they were. I like to think that anybody who entered our home felt like they belonged, because I would want the same.

 

Having a house party didn’t and doesn’t always look like the photos. Most of the time my closest friends went home before everyone else and I’d go to bed before the party ended, my social battery busted, falling asleep in my tiny bedroom to the sound of people stomping up and down our stairs. Sometimes I wore earplugs. Sometimes I woke up hours later to noise, pissed at my roommates. One time I even left my own party. Multiple times my night would end in tears. But we always did it again and again. With so much fervor. With so much love. 

 

Some people hate hosting. I don’t. There’s nothing comparable to the feeling that throwing a house party brings me. It’s a spectacular, simple activity. It’s timeless. It caters to no one type of person. It’s for everyone–even introverts, self-doubters, homebodies, and socially anxious people like me.

 

Even though it's incredibly vulnerable to invite a bunch of friends and strangers into your home, hosting allows me the chance to face my vulnerabilities head on. It embodies the very feeling I carry inside of me, the feeling I’ve never been able to escape no matter how much I’ve tried: the desire to connect with others. To make them feel like they belong. To make myself feel as though I belong.

 

Despite my own fears, I embraced that desire the moment I was given the agency, from the very moment I threw my first party. It’s all evidence to know that we are not alone in this fast-moving, unpredictable world. What a better place to nurture this feeling of belonging, than in the very place you call home.​"

 

- Claire