The Road Home

I think I’ve discovered what ails me, what causes me to be a slightly extravagant addition to whatever place I may be in.
I read an article about people who go back to their country after having been abroad for a prolonged time.
They call it The Eternal Traveler Syndrome. It seems that if you spend too much time away from your country of origin, you can never go back. You will always feel like a foreigner and never manage to quite make yourself at home. Likewise, if you return to your country, you will never be ‘home’ because you will have grown accustomed to other sights and customs, to a different cuisine and a different climate.
So I guess I will never be Home, at least not in a place.
I carry my Home with me.
My Home are the people I love and that hold a place for me in their hearts, as I hold a place for them in mine.
My Home are the moments well spent, the good times shared, the tears survived, the smiles given, the lessons taught and learned.
My Home are the days of my life, some sweet, some bitter, some full of magic, all full of bits and pieces of me.
My Home are the voices, the sounds, the sights and the smells of the places and people I am a part of. The voice of my love when he says my name, the sound of the seagulls in the morning, the sight of the Cantabrian in all its magnificence, the smell of my babies when they were born, new lives, new worlds.
I can never go Home to a country or a city or a village because no place on earth will ever be that place which inhabits my dreams. There is no place where I would like to live always, beyond the shadow of a doubt. I have different places that are dear to me, for different reasons. But they are not my Home. I tried for them to be. I really wanted to have a Home and say I belonged there.
In the end, I realised my Home was not a place, however beautiful or close or far.
I don’t need to belong to a place because my place is where my heart is.
After careful consideration, I’ve discovered that I could never go home because I have always been there.

Careful