Countless times I have been asked where home is. Where I consider home. Is it the country I was born in. Or where I grew up. Is it the city I feel most at ease in. The place where I have the strongest sense of belonging. Or is it where I am currently building a new life in.
None of these.
Finally, I have well and truly realised this. Home too is constantly changing, evolving, growing, maturing, just as we are in ourselves. Much like our overall happiness. I believe that home does lie within, and has much to do with the extent in which we live in the present.
Each place I have moved, my want and need to “feel” at home somewhere has added to the stress and anxiety of starting up life in a new place. These early and somewhat harsh judgements form in my mind, and dictate my belief in whether I belong, and therefore influence my perceived happiness. Quite often I have determined whether I see a future in my new life based on an impulsive judgement on how at home I feel. It has not helped my tendencies to run when the pieces of the puzzle don’t easily fit together. And each time I run, I hold hope to find a “home” in the next adventure. A fresh chance to find my place in the world.
For the first few years away in Canada, I would refer to New Zealand as home- where I was born and grew up in. It took a while to fully let go of my childhood there, so therefore my “home” was always 18 hours away by flight. How are you meant to really live with presence if your grounding is on the other side of the world. In people who are not actually in your immediate place. This was the same after leaving London and moving to Melbourne. I so strongly felt a sense of true belonging in London that when it came to leave, it in all honesty, felt like I was on the other side of a bitter one sided break up. Upon moving to Melbourne, the place I deemed as home was STILL 24 hours away. In a country where I was not legally able to live. My next move to Hong Kong had a similar feeling- though at this point I don’t think I even had any idea where home was or where I wanted it to be anymore! Even upon my swift retreat back to Melbourne, I was unable to find any real sense of grounding.
Reality is, I know now that I had been searching in all the wrong places for this feeling of home. I latched onto a city to give me the grounding I so desperately searched for. I put my happiness in the hands of a physical place. I did not look within myself, and was quick to shift the blame. I now am so aware that home does not necessarily lie in comfort and content, and much like happiness, is not black and white. It is a choice though, and really does require presence. But what does presence require?
It requires you be in your current situation and life with full awareness. Passion. It requires you to live for everything that you have at this one moment in time (however long that may be). Fire. It requires you to harness anything and everything that lights you up. Love.
But just like overall happiness, remaining present does not mean that you forget your past. No looking back. It is about carrying it with you to find your strength. It is about harnessing what you need to latch onto in order to go forth as the best version of yourself. I do believe that you can look to the future whilst still living in the present moment. Excitement for the road ahead is fire; belief in direction headed is acceptance. This is happiness. Happiness is presence. And I believe that living in this way is where I can finally starting to feel at home in my own skin, and therefore at home in the current place that I am building a life in.
So now to answer this question I so often hear, and always regret trying to explain…
I do not call a particular place home. I know where I grew up, and will never completely let that go. I have a respect for the places that have challenged and tested my very being, and a warmth for those ones I felt brought me to life. My home is now within, and I alone hold an accountability in my grounding. It will continue to change. It was continuously challenge. And it won’t necessarily be comfortable. But, it is a work in progress, and one that I so strongly believe will lead me on the most fulfilling, exciting, but grounded life.
Home is a journey to an ever changing destination.
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