Thoughts on Home……

Earlier this month I traveled back to Seattle, the place I think of as my adult home and up to Canada to where my family is. Both hold very strong emotional ties for me, and after having not visited either since last October this trip was long overdue. This was in fact the longest stretch of time I’ve been away from home. I had been counting down the days coming up to this trip the last few months. I was super homesick, and couldn’t wait to surround myself with those I love dearly and who love me in return.

My visit to Canada was so needed, and yet a little difficult at the same time. Lots had changed in the year I’d been away. Lives had changed. In the couple months surrounding me coming to Saudi my parents had decided to part ways. Each starting different lives in different addresses. The family home was sold. Granted I hadn’t lived in this home in like 15 years, but mentally it was the place I would go when and if everything fell apart. It was my safe haven. The place I knew I would be welcomed and cared for unconditionally. And it no longer exists for that purpose. I was immensely nervous how I would fit in. If there would be room for me. If I would feel out of place. As it turns out there was space, both physically and emotionally for me to fit back in to the mix. I shifted my time between my mom and pop’s places, and spent a night surrounded by family at my brother’s. I caught up with old friends, many who I’ve known my entire adult life. I treated my mom to an early Christmas present and we escaped to a luxury spa for the night where we drank wine overlooking the snowy hills that flowed into Okanagan Lake. It was a great week!

My time in Seattle was spent running what felt like a million errands and a majority of the time sitting on my best mate’s couch, wine in hand thankful to have some much needed catch-up time. I felt honoured that so many people went out of there way to carve out a slice of time in their busy lives to see me. Truly. Even now that I’ve been back a week my heart is huge and I’m so thankful to have so many great friends. Many I’ve known for years, some only in the last couple years I spent in Seattle. Thanks to modern technology I can easily keep in touch with them and connect whenever we find ourselves in the same geographical locale. It’s pretty awesome. So thank you- you all know who you are!! To those of you I missed- I promise to see you next time I’m in town….whenever that may be…..

So now that I’m back here in Saudi Arabia, I feel myself split in three pieces. The part of me that lives in Saudi and loves adventuring around the world.  A part of me that misses my old urban life in Seattle, where so many of my dear friends are. A place where any day of the week you can find a double happy hour, and there’s always something going on.  And then the part of me that will always call Canada home, regardless of the number of years I am away. I think Pascal Mercier sums it up perfectly with the following quote “We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find only by going back there.” Wouldn’t you agree?