As the school year slowly approaches its end, I am filled with nervous excitement. When I think about everything that has happened, I am flabbergasted. Does anyone even use that word anymore? Anyway, thanks to technology I have been able to see and talk to my parents and friends. Actually getting to hug them, sit and eat dinner, and other mundane daily activities, is what I am looking forward to most. It is crazy to think that I have not been home since September 2, 2010. I'm mixed with pride that I was able to adjust and build a life here, but under the surface is a bead of fear. The fear isn't because of my family, not really. Though I am afraid of not wanting to leave them again. It is such a strange feeling to think that in less than three months, I will be back in the States. Huh, interesting how I said States and not home. I guess it is hard for to see the States as home when my daily life occurs here. The upcoming travel feels more like a vacation that it is a return home. In some ways my parent's ouse will always feel like home. A large piece of my heart will always be in the U.S. with them. They say home is where the heart is, but how does that work if your heart is in two places at once?
This experience challenges the way I define home. Used as an adjective like in home country, it is easily pinned down to a specific reply. However, when trying to define the place we call home . . . the answer remains a list. Can you have more than one home?
I know that the very fortunate often have more than one house that they spend time in throughout the year. The question is which one is home? I think what makes this so difficult is that at this point in my life I am in a transition. In reality your whole life is a transition from one point to the next, but right now I am in that awkward stage of having family, but not yet having one of my own. Let me explain that a little better. I have lived at four different addresses since leaving my parents house after high school. Those four addresses are not including the dorms that spent three years of college in. My family is still defined in the same way: my parents, sisters, nephews, cousins, aunts, and all the other traditional defining factors. However, one day in the future I hope to have a husband and then I will have him, any children we have, his family . . . At that point, where is home? Is it just about where I live? I guess a lot of that depends on what my definition of home will be at that point. For now, I am not sure how I define home so I just see myself as having two: one in Abu Dhabi and one in the U.S.
In less than three months I will be returning to my home in the U.S. As anxious as I am about shifting cultures again, I am more excited about seeing the people I love most. It will be hard to go back and I sure as soon as I have adjusted and begun to relax it will be time to leave again. Such is life. I choose to look at it this way, either way it is all about coming home.
This experience challenges the way I define home. Used as an adjective like in home country, it is easily pinned down to a specific reply. However, when trying to define the place we call home . . . the answer remains a list. Can you have more than one home?
I know that the very fortunate often have more than one house that they spend time in throughout the year. The question is which one is home? I think what makes this so difficult is that at this point in my life I am in a transition. In reality your whole life is a transition from one point to the next, but right now I am in that awkward stage of having family, but not yet having one of my own. Let me explain that a little better. I have lived at four different addresses since leaving my parents house after high school. Those four addresses are not including the dorms that spent three years of college in. My family is still defined in the same way: my parents, sisters, nephews, cousins, aunts, and all the other traditional defining factors. However, one day in the future I hope to have a husband and then I will have him, any children we have, his family . . . At that point, where is home? Is it just about where I live? I guess a lot of that depends on what my definition of home will be at that point. For now, I am not sure how I define home so I just see myself as having two: one in Abu Dhabi and one in the U.S.
In less than three months I will be returning to my home in the U.S. As anxious as I am about shifting cultures again, I am more excited about seeing the people I love most. It will be hard to go back and I sure as soon as I have adjusted and begun to relax it will be time to leave again. Such is life. I choose to look at it this way, either way it is all about coming home.
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