“Where is home?”
(This post is inspired from a TEDTalk by Pico Iyer. http://www.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_where_is_home
)
For a long time, ‘home’
was just a place for me. At the same time, the idea of ‘home’ was
ever-changing. When I moved back and forth from NY to Florida as a child, for a
long time Florida was my ‘home’. When I moved out of home (with my family) and to
college, I called my dorm room ‘home’. Then, when I moved to India for 3 months,
I called the smallest village at the end of Gujarat my ‘home’. Whenever I visited
my two long-time friends, Vanessa and Krystel, I also called their places,
‘home.’ Where is home?
Then I learned, home
is anywhere there are people you love. It’s true. The people I love are in
so many different places. When I am with these people, I feel so comfortable,
welcomed, cared for and completely adored. The deep friendships I have created
and fostered over time have also allowed me to adopt their families. I am
eternally grateful for this privilege. It’s by having families welcome me into
their homes and their lives that I have learned to hug, kiss, love and laugh.
People are what make homes, but people are what break homes, too. This, I’ve
seen and learned from time and time again.
Home for me comes in many different shapes and sizes.
Sometimes it’s grand, tall, warm and welcoming. Sometimes, it’s dark, scary,
isolated and mean. “Home is where the
heart is,” something I’ve probably read in every Chicken Soup for the Soul book. It’s true. However, I’ve come to realize that home is also
within myself. The home I’m beginning to build within myself is not done
yet. There are moments when I think I have built a good, solid foundation and I
am ready to move onto the next level. Then there are moments when I am flooded
with worry, doubt, and anxiety only to have to begin, again. What I’ve realized
is that if you can’t sit in yourself-with all your demons, joys, experiences,
accomplishments and failures, how can you find a home in anything else?
Pico Iyer said, “Home isn’t just the place where you were
born, it’s also the place where you become yourself.” When I talk about going
back to NY, I rarely say, “I can’t wait to go home.” I don’t say this because my new home is China, but because China
and my experience here have influenced great change in me. In fact, the idea of
going back to NY, a place I’ve called ‘home’ for most of my life, freaks me
out. China is where I learned about myself; my capabilities for success, my
coping mechanisms for failing, it is where the sound of my laugh changed. It’s
where I know my neighbors and say ‘hello’ to the children who scurry up the
stairs after school. Home has become a place where I dance around in my
underwear to soca/chutney music at 12 in the morning, or cry from the exhaustion
of having diarrhea for a straight month.
Iyer ended his talk with, “Home isn’t just a place where you
sleep, but it’s also where you stand.” Living on my own, learning what I have
and understanding that I have more learning to do, has allowed me to stand.
Even if standing is a result of my dear friends and mom supporting me, or if
it’s because I am standing today on my own, it’s all adding building blocks to
the home with which I am building within myself. This is the true place of
‘home’ for me.
As my students say, “Welcome you to my home.”
