home /hōm/
| Noun: |
| The place where one lives permanently, esp. as a member of a family or household. |
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| Adjective: |
| Of or relating to the place where one lives: “your home address”. |
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| Adverb: |
| To the place where one lives: “what time did he get home last night?”. |
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| Verb: |
| (of an animal) Return by instinct to its territory after leaving it: “geese homing to their summer nesting grounds”. |
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When I googled “home definition” this is what came up. The scariest part of this definition for a nomad like me is “the place where one lives permanently”. In recent weeks, I have been struggling with the idea of my next move. Struggling to decide if the next move will be a more permanent one as opposed to the numerous short-term predecessors. With the world as my oyster, options abound. Do I move to NYC to enjoy the last two years of my 20s and more importantly all of my close friends that are there, also allowing me to be closer to my family? Do I move to Uganda, my ancestral home to achieve my ultimate life goal of improving, somehow, the lives of people there and begin to build stronger relationships with my 77 first cousins living there and other family? Do you I move to any other African country because I have a deep-seeded desire to affect positive change on the continent? Do I move to Paris simply because of my obsession with the French language and my long desire to live in the city of lovers? Do I spin a globe, close my eyes, and let fate do the choosing through my finger? Do I base my choice on work? Do I base it on what is the easiest? Do I base it on following my passion (a passion which i have yet to define)?
Last night at dinner with friends, someone asked “where do you want to raise a family and get old?”, which caused many of the immigrants around the table to have mini panic attacks, though some knew the exact answer to this. For me, this is a question that I don’t feel any closer to answering and one that I wonder if I will ever be able to answer.
The question of home is one that I struggle with. The desire for a permanent one is sometimes fleeting though sometimes overbearing. Some days I long to live in a place with all of my things and keepsakes that I have amassed the world over. Other days, the idea of living in the same place for the next forty years, let alone five, is a scary one, what if i make the wrong choice. the world is sooooo big.
