Home.

 A concept, with which I have struggled with for a majority of my life. I have never defined home as a direct address, as that tends to change every three to four years, but rather the feeling of finally being able to exhale. Something that became nearly impossible when I chose to attend school across the country. Home for me became the fragments of memories of Friday night dinners at my Aunts. Of my family sitting around the table, simultaneously holding three separate conversations. Home is the sound of their laughter and clinking glasses. Home became the ability to feel free of being myself without the fear of judgement and commentary. Of no longer worrying about the perception of my actions, and language, because I was fully understood. Home became the place where failure was not the end but rather a set back.  

Home was the ability to stand in the same room with the people I valued the most, and simply breath. Slowly with the changes that are brought on by time and circumstance, my memories slowly became my home, reminding me of the thing I lost, and could never be. My mind became my home, a place I could escape to, that held all of the most precious moments and people I cared for. A collection of every exhale that allowed for the ever lasting weight that resides on my ribcage to be lifted. It is through the photographs I keep stored in my mind, that I am able to return home, to a place that no longer exists, with people long gone. Memories allow for the preservation of the home I was raised in. Not a physical location but rather the collection of every experienced moment in my life, that have allowed for me to find comfort and safety, after a long day. To be able to be as authentic to yourself as you can be. 

However that does not mean disrespecting the location of these memories for that is how, we lose the history that each location holds. As it is that history that has allowed for our existence, and there will always be a connection to the land. As I still feel connected to ancient ruins I have never personally seen, and my heart flutters at the images of the old landscapes of a country I may never see again. I acknowledge that the land and history presented in the grains of that land are a part of my existence. They are the connecting strings that tie my family together and are woven together to create the rug that lays on the foundation of my home.  It is the land from which I am created that has allowed for me to have a home. It is the stories of that land that were often told around the dinner table. It is the food provided by the land that we bonded over and without it, I would have no memories to call home. 

It is in these fragments of the past both ancient and recent that I know what it is I search for, in my pursuit of a future. As without these Identities, I would not know what I valued, what has provided with safety and comfort and what I need to survive. As my home is not a fixed destination but rather a forever changing, evolving series of emotions that require a dependancy on my memories to allow for me to be able to identify if I am truly home, or simply stranded in a room with familiar faces. Home for me has and continues to be the feeling of my lungs expanding while I inhale, before a slow exhausted exhale, that allows for my shoulders to drop and, for my eyes to shut, knowing that I am finally safe.