Where is home for an immigrant?
There is home, and then there is home-home.
I was born in Curitiba, in the southern region of Brazil on August 13th, 1983. Someone is turning 40 soon… — I see you doing math.
Curitiba was home for most of my life. It’s where I went to school from kindergarten to my master’s degree. It’s where I had my first job, car, house, alcoholic coma, boyfriend, and girlfriend. It’s where I made good friends, not-so-good friends, had my heart broken and broke hearts. It was the field of family feuds — from my parents’ divorce in 1994 to my very own in 2007.
Note to self for the next life: do not marry at the age of 19.
The first time I left Curitiba I was only 16. I spent a month in Chestnut Hill, MA, a small town near Boston, taking an English course at Pine Manor College.
On day eight I called my mom from the pay phone: “Mom, I don’t want to go back. I want to stay here.”
“No, ma’am. You will return and go to college here.” She said firmly.
I left Curitiba a couple of times in my 20s, moving to Cambridge, MA for three months and then to Belo Horizonte, MG — Matt’s hometown — for a whole year. Throughout my life, every time I was in a new city, even just visiting, on vacation, I always pondered: “Could this be home?”
Back in Curitiba, life was both easy and hard. Matt solidified his career as a music producer. I honed my skills in the corporate world. We became parents to Mel. We had a support system, and money in the bank, but I was restless.
I wanted to stay and I wanted to leave.
In 2014, a work opportunity came up and in a few months Matt, Mel and I were boarding a plane to Orlando, FL. As I walked all the way to the end of the plane, seat 35B, holding Mel’s tiny hand, my whole body covered with goosebumps: “This is it. it’s for real this time.”
I knew, I could feel it in my bones, that the goodbye I said to my family at the airport was not a “see you soon”.
Orlando, the place I dreamed of living one day when I was only nine years old entering, for the first time, the gates of the Magic Kingdom, was now the home of my tiny family.
It’s been exactly eight years and five months since our big move, and only two days since I came back from visiting Curitiba. This was the first time I went back strictly to enjoy, without having to check work emails, join Zoom meetings and keep track of deadlines.
My hometown is where I decided to kick off my sabbatical.
Maybe my birthplace would help me remember who I was meant to be before the world told me who I should be.
The streets were familiar, as usual, but the energy and overall look changed so much.
New coffee shops, restaurants, and bars. Pride flags decorating windows in a city that still votes conservative.
My family was all hands on deck to put together a birthday party for Mel. Hours chatting with my cousins over coffee. My aunt telling me it’s time for me to get some botox. My mom and dad all over Mel. My little sister right beside me. Seeing my nephews. Walking a street market with my friend on a Sunday morning. Eating tapioca. Drinking quentão (hot red wine with spices).
A sense of freedom and joy I haven’t felt in years.
I fell in love with the new old and I felt loved, cherished.
At moments, I caught myself feeling undeserving of all that love and attention.
My brain trying to process it all.
What is home? Could this be home again?
I looked outside to make sense of what was going on inside. I thought about people who never left their hometown. Were they happier?
I could count some thriving, others stuck, some in the same job for decades, and others starting over — just like anywhere else, just like me.
When we are kids, home is where our parents are, but once we’re grown, once we’ve grown our own kids to some extent, then is home wherever we want?
Is it wherever is safer? Where we can afford a good living? Is it wherever we can settle into retirement?
Maybe because I am in some kind of “unknown” season, these questions were buzzing in my head.
What is home? Where is home for an immigrant? Why am I questioning everything? I should know. Why don’t I know by now?
Then I remembered what Suleika Jaouad wrote a few months ago in her publication The Isolation Journals:
“I don’t know” is fertile terrain.
So often, we believe we should know.
We look around at everyone else thinking, “They know,” and we pretend to know, and try to wrench ourselves into knowing.
But there’s so much possibility in not knowing.
On the plane again, after two weeks of pure fun (and some family drama because of course), I tried to understand these feelings and questions.
I wondered if home, my origin, is the place that prepared me to chase my dreams, and home-home, the place I’ve been chasing and conquering them.
From wherever you are reading this, I hope you are feeling home-home — at least for now, until your next dream takes you somewhere else or reminds you that you belong right there where you are.
Sending love + light,
Thali
