Well. Through a series of unexpected events, a whole chunk of my past came back and hit like a brick today. A piece that I’ve placed neatly away in my mind, like a movie or a dream or a memory. I rarely talk about it, rarely engage with it. Denial stains everything about it.
The wayback machine brought me to an old blog I’d thought lost, and I encountered raw and real and open writing. Things that I’d probably not talk about now, so openly. This bit struck me:
“For me, there is a permanent homelessness that follows in my heart wherever I am. When I think of home, residences are not the foremost visions in my mind. The essence of a home – somewhere that you know you belong, somewhere that you fit no matter what happens – this essence is something I seek. Something I have sought. An essence that is altoghether missing from my life. So while he drives and stares, my brother reads and waits, I just wonder if and when I will ever go home again.”
May 28, 2012
Nine years later, I’ve found home. I’m relieved for Jess of 2012. She found her way through everything these past 9 years. I used to seek that external home – that place I’d walk in and feel “myself”, or that person who could make it so. The essence of belonging, of being whole.
Back then, I didn’t feel I belonged in myself, let alone the world. Now, I am the world I need. I expand into the world, I inhabit spaces, learn from them, absorb them, become more at home as I expand my experiences, knowledge, mind, space. I’ll always be at home, because I have found a way to love myself, to forgive myself, to accept myself where and how I am.
It’s a damn journey, one that still makes me anxious at times. But nine years later, I. AM. home.
