July - August 2018, Pune, India
COMING HOME
For most people home is the place, the house even, where they grew up. And where most likely most of their relatives and friends will spend the majority of their lives. With our society becoming more and more globally connected, it is more common than ever to move to another city or country for work or simply to build a life the place of their dreams.
Normally, this is the case with freshly graduated kids, who are spreading their wings and leaving their nest, ready to conquer the world.
It is 2017 and and my parents are living in a long distance relationship across continents, when they finally decide to create their life on common grounds again - in India.
The twentysomething version of me back then, who was exploring life as a long-term backpacker in Central- und South America, felt excited for her parents' new path. Even though she understood, coming home will never feel the same again.
What is a home really? I was always sure about home being this smell of the fields next to the house I grew up in, the warm and homey feel of my mum's interior design taste, that didn't resonate with me yet was so comforting, the streets of my hometown which I know inside out. Overall my sense of home was very much tied to childhood memories. But leaving this so called home for an extended period of time, I learned that this feeling cannot be attached to a place, a smell or a memory. It can only be found within you.
However, it was one bumpy road to get to this realization.
Leaving to explore the unknown it didn't take long until comfort was found in human experiences. People came and go while traveling through several countries and not staying anywhere for longer than a month. Some stayed. Some became home. There is this romantizised saying, that people can become your home, mostly referring to romantic relationships or relatives.
While this can feel very true, as it most certainly felt for me, this
belief can be very missleading. When people start being your refuge, the relationship to them is determined to keep you from growth at some point during your journey, if you become unaware. Being around these people may make it too easy to stay in your comfort zone. And once these people are not around anymore, due to geographical distance or other circumstances, you loose your home, and therefore you loose your sense of self.
My very first trip to India taught me so much about acceptance, patience and belief. And for a few months this country felt like my comforting refuge in a foreign culture.
It wasn't so clear back then and only through later reflections came to my awareness, but ultimately the biggest takeaway from this trip was to stop searching for a home.
Because home can only be found within yourself.
