I’m preparing to go on vacation and see my extended family for 10 days, no small feat considering the flight costs four figures and it takes ~20 hours for me to fly there. I can’t put into words how much I look forward to seeing all of my relatives and to soak in all of the sights and sounds and smells of the city of my birth, the city half of my roots come from. Opportunities for me to go back to visit happen all too rarely and this one, this chance visit, is some I’m still pinching myself to ensure that no, it isn’t a dream that I’ve managed to work out this unexpected trip home.
But still, even though I’ll only be gone for 10 days, I’ll miss the life I’m living on my side of the world. One would think that because I’ve traveled so much and moved around the world as a child that I’d be used to the hellos and goodbyes, the comings and goings that are so transient in a traveler’s life. But it doesn’t get any easier when it comes to family or sentiment or friends or longing. It doesn’t have to be a place I’ve considered home, even. It can be a country I’ve traveled extensively or a city that captured my heart.
One thing I’ve learned in all of my moves and travels is that the more of the world I see, the more of the world my heart belongs to. I can never delete or subtract, I can only add to the many places that lay claim to it. It gets harder, too, the older I get because then I meet people who I fall in love with, too. It’s starting to become not just about the places anymore, and I’m not sure how I feel about that because it leaves me mixed up and confused. And so I accept the fact that for now, my heart belongs nowhere and everywhere, and I’m happy with that because some day, it’ll have to belong to someone, and then who knows what, if anything, will change?
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