When home is not more than a four letter word

When “home” is not more than a four letter word

So I arrived at that unknown place that would be my home for the next twelve months. But would it be my home? Home is my mum’s place, is it not? My opinion on this new place was prejudiced and so was my opinion of the people who I was going to work with. I made up my mind before I even arrived. After a while I started to realize that I was wrong, and everything was beyond my expectations. Yet, I was the person who was deciding what this experience would look like.

“You will be homesick, it is pretty normal.” or “Do you miss home?” – No, actually I was neither homesick at all, nor did I miss home. Instead, I enjoyed discovering that new place and very soon it was not so new to me anymore. It felt like home.

What is “home”? What does it mean to you? While working with people who have been homeless during my experience with the European Voluntary Service, I realized that home is not about the roof over your head. Some of the men have been sleeping rough for years, having nowhere to go, moving from one hostel to another, being kicked out and taken back in. One of them said “Home is about having someone to listen to you, someone who is there for you”. Many of them first lost family members and friends, and only then did they lose their housing, their home. They lost their homes at the same time as those other losses. They lost their hold, lost their footing, maybe losing loved ones as well, only then losing the house as a result. All of that loss somehow showed me that there is more to “home” than just the four walls around you.

So “home” also means having something to hold on to and to rely on which is often the support of friends and family around you, but not necessarily.

Home is about being loved for who you are and being with people who enjoy your presence. Home is also about being in the presence of people that you enjoy, being with people with whom you can be happy together. Those feelings are not bound to a specific place. Home has much to do with happiness, thus feeling at home sometimes is especially difficult when you are unhappy.

After one year, I came back to what used to be my home, and I realized that everything has changed. Everything is so different. I feel different. And even though I had never really fit in before, always just trying to do so, I realize now that I do not even want to fit in there anymore. I feel misunderstood, misunderstood by closed minds. Whatever I do, no matter how hard I try to empathize with them, to put myself in their places and understand what they are thinking, it does not change anything because they cannot understand me. What seemed foreign is now so familiar, and what I was used to before is so far away and foreign now.

I hold out my hand at the bus stop, and everyone thinks I am crazy. I cycle on the wrong side of the road or I expect tap water for free with my meal in a restaurant, but I will not get it. I pour milk in my tea and usually arrive 15 minutes late anywhere I go. I call a friend to meet up today, but there is no way that will work out because I “did not give enough notice”. 

That is when I feel like an alien in Europe. When I realize that there are cultural differences and habits that I got used to, but to others they seem strange. I do not feel foreign simply because of those cultural differences, but because of the ignorance of other people. Even though some might be aware that those differences exist, they do not understand what it is like to experience them. Especially as I got so used to the habits and the culture of the country where I spent time, it is very hard for me now to identify with the culture of my own country and the habits that some people have here. Other people mostly do not understand that special feeling of homesickness because they have not been in a similar situation. How could you possibly feel homesick for a place where you have only lived for a short period in your life? In that way, feeling foreign has much to do with feeling misunderstood.

Yes, I am homesick. It is the little things, the little sparks of happiness and luck, the moments you enjoy with your best friends that make you feel home. Thus it is those memories that make you feel homesick. I do miss that auld grey town at the sea, with its two candy bar like chimneys and its beautiful parks and hidden spots. I miss the people - every single person I met and shared the most beautiful and stunning moments and laughs with.