“Home”

“Where are you from?” is becoming a difficult question to answer.

Many of us have grown up in one town, attended school somewhere else, and — fuck it, we’ve lived all around the globe. From Kabul to Nairobi to New York, there is a generation of people who seem (to our parents, at least) to move around without warning and without checked baggage.

We live far from our parents — sometimes really far. Our closest friends are scattered throughout the world. As for finding a partner…the lucky ones are able to narrow their choice by country.

Nobody talks about it, but this transient lifestyle leaves a gaping hole where our emotional support system used to be. The concept of ‘home’ no longer exists for us in the way that it has for our parents. You know, that neighbourhood where all of your friends and family live? The house that you go back to every year for Christmas holidays. The annual reunion when everyone you love is in the same room at the same time.

We don’t know. Because ‘home’ means anything from the hotel during your three-week assignment in Bangalore to the house where your mother lives. If home refers to several places all at once, is it possible to develop the deep, authentic relationships that serve as our emotional roots?

Yes, it is. The critical part of a relationship is it’s formation. In the first few meetings, or parties, or coffee chats you set the tone for how the rest of that relationship will play out. Once you’re on track, there is much less pressure to check in every single day or say something frightfully witty.

Wondering how to kick it off right? The golden rule to making and keeping great relationships (even across oceans) is quality over quantity. You have only a short amount of time to spend with the people you love, so make it count. Do something that you both adore. Talk about a topic that’s deeply meaningful to you. Put away your phones.

The feeling of ‘home’ is no longer about being in a single place — it’s about building that feeling, wherever you are.