A building. A person. A house. Kenya. South Africa . America. Canada. China. Russia. We all want a place to call home. A place filled with all our loved ones, gathered near to us at arm’s reach. A place where all our fears and worries don’t compare to the amount of joy and laughter in the place. But more than having a place to call home, we want the feeling of home in our hearts. The sense of belonging, the feeling of wanting to be exactly where you are and not wishing to be elsewhere. The feeling of knowing your deepest fear, but still being free to live. The feeling of love and dreams colliding together to bring your greatest innermost self. The feeling of knowing your flaws and brokenness but being free enough to be you. That feeling is home to me.
Two years ago I left my birth country, Kenya to come to America to study Digital Media in a private Christian institution in Michigan. Did I 100% want to be there? The answer to that is, I wanted to see what would happen. Yes, I was more than thrilled to be there, it was new, it was different. But, I did leave a place I had called home. My mum, my dad, my siblings and my best friends. I left a place that felt like I had built connections and friendships to last forever. I left my church that was probably one of my most favourite places to be in. I left my house that I had grown up in for over ten years, where I had all my firsts. My first crush, my first school award, my first real friendships, and my very first feeling of belonging.
I was 17 then, when I made the decision to leave everyone I loved and cherished to start a journey of my own. I was 14 when I decided I didn’t want to do my life in one country. It was the feeling I got when I went to America and the Netherlands when I was 14 that I always remembered and I wanted. It was how I felt when I went to Dubai for vacation with my family when I was 15 that made me realize; home isn’t my house, it’s a feeling. It was going on a Dubai desert safari with my family, it was going to the beaches and parks with my soccer friends in America and Netherlands. It was the parties and festivals we went for in Kenya, the Bible studies and worship nights I attended that felt like home. So, no, I didn’t leave Kenya because I was looking for a place to call home. I left because I am a wanderer looking for the feeling in different places.
Society definitely pushes you to settle down as soon as possible, to get it all together, to decide where you want to go, where you want to live and spend the rest of your life. It steadily imposes the idea of having a house, and making it a home. I don’t disagree but neither do I make it a priority now to get it all together. I live for little moments that will eventually build into a lifetime of experiences and no regrets. I live for days where I feel the sun on my face, the smell of summer, like strawberries and melons in a bowl or the rain slowly hitting the roof of the house while my friends and I cuddle under the covers watching our favourite TV-show. That’s a home to me.
I do have a place, a house to call home because that’s also important. To me, home is a place that no matter how long I am gone for, I can always come back and feel nothing has changed. That’s Kenya to me. I think that’s why I found it slightly easier to leave at a young age. Because I knew no matter how far or long gone I seemed, I could always go back and it would always feel the same. So, for me, my wandering heart does have a home, but is always seeking for adventure.
It’s okay to push off the society’s idea of the proper way to do life, to seek yourself, to seek adventure. It’s okay to leave those you love for a while for your own experiences. It’s okay to feel like you don’t belong where you are at the moment, even when that place is something you called home. Because when you don’t feel you can call that place alone home, it’s cause you’re being asked to build one, darling.
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