I have been moving countries since I am four years old.
My first memory takes place the night of my first move, I was in my oldest brother’s arms being carried out. I was crying, I guess they thought I knew what was happening, the meaning of the commotion. But I didn't, not fully. I was crying because as my brother carried me away I could see my bag, full of my favourite toys being left behind. Something you’d see in one of the Toy Story films I suppose, though the toys never endured an epic tail in their efforts to find me. Anyways, we left them behind and my movings begun.
More than two decades later, I have now lived in 5 different countries, 8 different cities and 12 different houses/apartments. It may not seem like much but it is to me. Moving so much admittedly has its perks. You really get to know places in ways that tourists never will. You get to learn about new people, places and even about a new you. With time you get to make friends with fantastic people who probably you wouldn't have met otherwise.
All this comings and goings have a hefty bill though…is not all rainbows and butterflies. It is like being the new kid in high school over and over again. Not having friends, a job, money, not understanding the geography, the language, the cultural meaning of things. Just feeling lost, out of place, different. To this day, I continue to go through the same emotional process each time I move. Last year, I had plead to move one more time -to my ideal place- and never again. Alas, this was not on my cards and here I am, in a different location.
As a result of all this changes I have an accent no matter where I am nor the language I speak. I look different because of my skin, my hair, my fashion choices, my food choices, my way of thinking or even the way I carry myself. I never fully fit it, ever.
The idea of being a world citizen is really sexy or so it was to me, and though I didn't geared my life to be one something similar happened to me. I cannot claim to be of the world as I don’t have experiences, memories or even knowledge about all this places. I am merely a collection of experiences, my experiences, and they have taken place in geographically defined places. And this is exactly my biggest challenge. Is not that I have no sense of belonging at all but rather my being is layered, fragmented, disjointed and somehow melted into one. Some layers are content and thrive in certain places and spaces but do not in others. There is always a part of me that blossoms and one that remains dormant.
We all search for happiness in our lives and for me happiness is having a place to go back to, a community to belong to, a place where one can fully be, a place where the mask comes off. I have mistakenly delegated my happiness to partners, friends and family members but the truth is that is my happiness and that I am the only responsible for it. It is this happiness that I am after, the reason of being of my movings. I know that in theory, happiness is not a destination but the path, however, I also know that at times, the road I chose doesn't make me happy and that I need to re-orient myself, and analyze my next move.
But how to analyze where to go next when I no longer have the strength to keep breaking myself into this diverse layers that blend and make me? how to stop moving and create a place to belong to when I belong to so many different places, cultures, and people?
I know I cannot have it all, and that having had these fantastic experiences has been a major privilege but here I am, not wanting to travel anymore, wanting the search to end, wanting for home to come find me.
I am saddened, I am lost, I am alone and I am not home.
Not yet.
