Where I Belong

And then suddenly, just like that, home becomes here. 

It's happening more frequently now, this sense of being home. Every time it settles my soul, I find myself sinking into the familiarity of a feeling that seems to have been a part of my reality before and yet I know this is a new sense of feeling I belong. This is no longer sensory, a whiff of freshly-cut fall grass, a taste of deep-fried bhaja with its spicy chilies making my mouth burn, the wooden packing box on the roof that the boys used as a clubhouse, or the automated train stops being announced in a foreign language that I understand just enough of to keep me from getting off at the wrong one.

This sense of belonging is grounded in my being.

I belong because I am. My search for belonging used to be tied to a desperate longing to find the pieces of myself in my past and place them in the puzzle of who I was today. I had pushed those memories down further than time because I didn't know how to be more than two people at once. Only in my 30's did I begin to try to understand why I'd never felt fully at home in a place I'd lived for half my life. And it was only when I returned to the place of belonging before that I began to understand why I'd never felt fully at home anywhere else.

If I'm completely honest with myself, this country was not the place I completely embraced as home as a teenager. Each country I'd grown up in had its pull and push and this was no different. Yet perhaps after one becomes an adult, one realizes that belonging no longer comes with a culture, a language, a race, a clique, or the way you cook your couscous. Belonging is now found in a person you grow close to, in a place that captures your heart, in yourself when you are still long enough to accept it.

The flashbacks used to come sudden-like and when they did, I snatched a moment from the past and tried to define myself in the present as such. In that moment, brief though it was, I felt satisfied that I had belonged at one point, somewhere. Then the moment would vanish and I would disconsolately return to a world where the mundane replaced wonderment.

Until I realized I had found home.

Home for now is where I am. I would like to think that if I leave one day, I will take that feeling of home with me, much like the turtle carries its home on its back, secure in knowing it always has a safe place to tuck away its vulnerable head. It is enhanced by the setting, as I dive into sensory experiences as often as I can escape to delectable seaside restaurants or exquisite choral concerts. It is held in the heart of the one dearest to me, as they offer a haven of understanding and commitment. Yet home in its deepest sense is found in knowing that I am who I was created to be. A joyful, vibrant, searching, faithful, adventurous, loving woman eager to discover the purpose God has given me.

Home is here because I am.