Home is an emotional place

I used to think of belonging as a distant concept. To belong is to be at home, and for the longest time, I did not have a home.

We often make the mistake of thinking that home is a thing with four walls and our bed; after all, that’s what we’re taught. I’ve come to realise that home is not a place, at least not a physical one.

I distinctly remember one of the first times I felt at home. It was sitting on the road with people whose names and faces I don’t remember, but who left me feeling like I was where I had always longed to be.

I felt at home hearing their voice through a locked door, opening it to gaze at their face, gathering them in a hug, releasing a breath I had held for too long — and one I am holding again.

I felt at home sitting in a hot, stuffy office, hearing again and again that I was valid, that I wasn’t crazy, looking at her and knowing that I was heard.

I felt at home watching her dance to 2000s Nigerian music in the middle of the road, knowing that whatever happened, she would have me and I would have her.

I felt at home buying roadside food from a woman whose coolers and plastics we could only access by jumping over a gutter, daring to make questionable decisions because I knew I was safe.

I felt at home sitting on a dark and lonely road, feeling peacefully removed from the world, feeling invincible because he was with me.

Home is an emotional place. Home is my friends, home is a group of strangers who shared the most intimate and most beautiful parts of me. I belong to all of them, I belong with them.

I used to think belonging was a distant concept, then I found home in the faces of my people.