I Have a Homeland
I have a country that I love. And that I want to get back to.
What might seem obvious to some people, most, even, was a striking realization for me. Ever since I was a child, my father told me, “That there is no life where you come from . That life, true life begins elsewhere. That I need to do my best to leave.” And leave I did.
I now live in Europe. I work the dream job in a wonderful place resplendent with beauty. I earn 10 times more than I would back home, eat delicious food, and enjoy my Fridays with a glass of wine and a cigarette, embodying the good life. But something is lacking. It feels like there is a deep, gaping hole in my chest that cannot be filled no matter how many pleasures of the free capitalistic world I stuff it with. It just won’t go away. And I have only recently realized that this ache is homesickness.
Memories come flooding into my mind of my school teachers pronouncing loudly and profanely that we, who receive a brilliant and expensive education, have an obligation to the rest of our people to remain in our country and to build it from the rubble up, not part ways and find home elsewhere. Their nagging, seething eyes made me want to leave in the first place. Now, I’ve come to realize that they were right.
But it was never easy to admit it. Especially for me, who could not bear being wrong, because I was right on so many other things. I always thought that they said so only because they were sore at not having been able to leave themselves. And that might have been the case, but it does not remove the deontological correctness from their statement. We had to stay. I had to stay.
But it’s never easy to remain in a struggling third-world country with widespread poverty and few opportunities for young experts. And where, above all, the flame of intellectuals is quenched by the looming despise of envy. My parents whispered gently these truths into my childish ears and I believed them. Ever the gentle little kid, listening to his father. Oh, my father…
My father, a trueborn academic if ever a world knew one. He was constricted to the petty business of business by the constant need he knew growing up and by the astronomical success of his friends. He climbed up the ladder of prosperity in order to be able to peek out of the sea of shit he was accustomed to, courtesy of his early years, and to behold the divine beauty of the world. And he swore to himself that he would make me see it.
From an early age, he poured into me vile half-truths about our country, partly for this ultimate goal and partly out of his own spite. Nevertheless, I adhered to them until I fully fulfilled his own wish and left. But now I regret it.
I am homesick. Truly and in every sense of the word. I miss my family — my mother’s gentle kiss, my father’s firm embrace, my brother’s loud jokes, my sister’s quiet wisdom. My nephews’ joyful laughter, my newborn niece’s sweet smile…
I miss my friends. Our loud gatherings — a strange amalgamation of bawdy jokes, vulgar slang and profound conversations on the matter of existence and the highest achievements of the mind. It is a peculiar one, but one which I would not exchange for anything.
I miss my home… The unique sensation it invokes, like a cocoon of warmth slowly and gently enveloping itself around me, protecting me from the darkness of the outside world. Giving me peace, calmness, bliss.
But beyond that, I feel that I have a certain duty owed to my country. I have reaped the best of its fruits, I have enjoyed a wealthy, sometimes even glamorous upbringing and I truly do not feel like I have given back enough. But it is not merely in the necessity of giving that the will to one day return lies, but in my personal desire to do so. My country has been good to me, much better than it has been to others, so why not…. improve it? If I Can? I have been lucky to have gained a brilliant education in areas that truly could make a difference, so I must put them to use! “To whom much is given, but will be required,” as goes the wise adage.
But above all, lies my one true goal. The secret holy grail that I sought my entire life — the promise of greatness. I might care little for the problems of mundanity, nor for the pains that sacrificing and not living my life to the fullest entail, if only I can have the assurance that all these sacrifices will bring me to my ultimate goal of greatness. And where else can I become great if not at home?
I believe my facilities sufficient to attain it abroad, even in the epicenter, the swarming heart of where every other person desires it. I know that I want it more than anybody else, that I need it. But greatness abounds back where I am from, ready for the taking. So why not simply reach out with my hand and grab it until I have known all of its fruits and pleasures?
There is no reason why not.
