Home/Expatriate

This entry has been a long time in draft form, mainly because this is a topic that is difficult to convey through words on a computer screen- home is much more of a feeling for me than a physical place, and this post still can't quite capture how odd this train of thought is. (Odd is the wrong word, but I cannot find a more fitting descriptor). 

I have now been living in Abu Dhabi for three and a half months. My first semester of college is complete, papers are in, finals are finished, and now I am packing, cleaning, and writing, waiting for tomorrow when I will board the first leg of my journey home. (Update: I am posting this from VT. From home. The flight was very long, but uneventful.)

Home. The word has such a different meaning for me now. Sama Tower, NYUAD, Abu Dhabi – they are starting to feel like home for me.

All are ‘home’, but so are so many other places. Vermont, New Jersey, India, a campground in Pennsylvania- all of them are homes to varying degrees. 

And I wonder if that makes them less of a permanent home, but instead as stops on a journey, where I will gather more homes, more friends, and more lessons as I continue to travel. With the way I have chosen to lead my life, it very much seems to be the latter.

That is good in a way, but not so good in a way too. Because it causes the following situation to happen.

I cannot wait to go back to Vermont. But it feels nostalgic. I am travelling back to memories.  The memories physically exist in the present- I am still seeing my family, my friends, the old stompin’ grounds- but I realize now I cannot hold onto them. In a few short days I will be going back to Abu Dhabi, not to return to Vermont for an even longer time span. And that is the pattern my life is going to hold for the foreseeable future.

I am already an expatriate. Derived from the Latin. “Ex”- out of. “Patriate”-the homeland. My visa is a residence visa (albeit a student residence visa, but still). I am literally and legally living in a new country. That is still a concept I have difficulty wrapping my head around.

I worry about the distance. I worry about home turning into something distinctly not home- turning foreign. There is no way I can stop that transformation, and it is big, and scary, but it also feels resigned and almost exciting. Where I call home is in flux. I guess the best description of where I am now is my 'childhood home'- but that name feels wrong too, because it is still one of my active homes now, in the present. It is a home but not a home. Confusing stuff. 

But I guess that all of this a part of growing up and beginning to forge your own life. It just seems magnified when you choose a college halfway around the world.

<3