Home is faces that look familiar, but you can’t place. Sitting in a bar on a Friday night, glass of wine in hand, and dreaming of places far away. Hearing a song on the radio and remembering that same song playing at a shoe shop you passed in Belgrade.
Home is lamenting that nothing has changed, but being annoyed when you walk to the hardware store and find an empty shopfront. Buying fresh vegetables from the farmers market and shaking the dirt off the carrots before putting them in the fridge. Late night messages from friends in different time zones.
Home is walking into your favourite cafe for the first time in three years and being asked if you’d like “your usual”. Driving along and breaking into a smile because something reminded you of that view from the top of that mountain in Montenegro. Cringing when you remember another hike a few days later when you got lost.
Home is deciding not to stop at the supermarket because you can’t get a park right out front, but driving half an hour to go to that cafe you like. Being surrounded by people and wondering if any of them could understand how you feel. Getting your monthly phone or health insurance bill, which might as well say “welcome back to the real world, sucker” on the envelope.
Home is reading books and articles about anywhere and everywhere because you now need to live vicariously through others, they way your friends and family said they were doing through you. Missing long conversations over coffee with people you may never see again.
Home is carrying your camera everywhere out of habit. Facebook updates from friends in languages you don’t understand. Taking five weeks to unpack your suitcase because you don’t want to admit that yes, you’re here for a while.
Home is falling back into old habits, some good, some not. Realising that while you were off doing something with your life, your friends were doing something with theirs and things just aren’t the same anymore.
Home is constant frustration with the general public and their “problems”, because you know we’ve actually got it pretty good. You’ve met people who do not and they were friendly and generous. They didn’t complain or expect the government to come to their rescue.
Home is laughing with colleagues who understand it does matter if the apostrophe is in the right place. Taking the scenic route instead of the highway because this place that you live in is beautiful and worth slowing down for and you appreciate that more now. Doing a double take before remembering the person you thought you just saw lives in another country.
Home is filled with maps and books inspiring your next adventure. There will be many.
Home is not really home any more. Just another place you are for the time being.
9 Comments
Simply beautiful.
Thank you Dalene.
Beautiful words.
xx
Thanks Amy. x
Such a beautiful post! I haven’t been home to the US in almost 3 years and I imagine it’ll be strange when I visit. And we’re away from our home in Germany often and long enough that I can relate to some of the things in your post on that level too. Such a strange mix of emotions!
Thank you Ali. It’s a really hard thing to explain isn’t it? How we become attached to places. How somewhere on the other side of the world can feel just as much like ‘home’ as where we’re from.
Beautiful thoughts Megan, to me home also feels strangely lucid, like a dream that I’m really living out but not quite. A temporary thing. It probably doesn’t help that I don’t have an actual home to go back to, especially now that we’ve just got rid of our only real home – our van. I feel even more disconnected!
I read about your van Rach. How come you’ve got rid of it?
Strangely lucid – I like that.
You picture home as a cage with a frustrated canary that wants to fly away, but can’t. Home can be beautiful even for that while, don’t you think? Travelling can be exhausting, sometimes you need to slow down and recover your breath and sleep some hours before jumping into the adventure again! 🙂