Understanding the idea of home...

39,000km up in the air, in Mozambique airspace, I can finally breathe again. The tension in my shoulders and lessened, my eyes can close without anxiety opening them again every 5 seconds and a long, long sigh of relief has taken over. I’m going home...well I think I am. I don’t really know what to call it to be honest. I know it’s a place of peace, of relaxation, of security, filled with love, surrounded by family...but home? I don’t know- that word is one of the most anxiety ridden words in the English language to me.

HOME. Blantyre is home, Claremont is home, Kommetjie is home, even places such as Washington DC, Harare, Toronto and Mechanicsburg, PA have felt like home. So where is my home? Where am I supposed to go back to? When’re someone asks me “where are you from?” “Where is home?” I get a lightheaded slightly anxious feeling. Filling out a form where they ask for a home address gives me a semi panic filled feeling...I just don’t know. Please don’t ask me, or rather- please give me the answer to this?

My passport is from one place, my parents from another and my upbringing in a different country all together. I grew up celebrating Malawian, American, South African, British, Zimbabwean, Australian cultures, and more. We celebrated the 4th of July and multiple mothers days, I never knew which teams to support in sports games, what country to cheer on in the Olympics or where I was supposed to ‘end up’.

This year I have spent so much time thinking on this idea of home. Where it is, and if I need it? The conclusion I have come to is this. I will never be able to live in a place with everyone I love. As soon as we get 18, my dearest friends, my siblings and I spread across the world- everyone has to go to University where they have a passport, it’s the only affordable option. So all at once over a few years I was thousands of miles away from the people I loved most, the individuals that gave me security and love. The people I relied on for the feeling of ‘home’. We went from doing life together to saving every bit of money we earned to try and fly across the world. Seeing one another even once a year, or once every two years was amazing, a hilight we look forward to for months and months on end. As soon as I am with those people, my tribe. Then I feel at home. Home I have realized, is the place whatever my people are, where those individuals who love me unconditionally exist. It could be a cabin in a mountain, by the pool in Malawi, in the busyness of Cape Town or somewhere else, anywhere else in the world. For me, home doesn’t attach itself to a place, it is connected to people who love me, people whom I love.

So today, today I am going home. My my pre ya, to my sisters. To a loving environment where no matter what happens you know they are there for you, they have your back and they would move mountains for me. I love my tribe. They are diverse, hilarious, loving and the most committed, dedicated people. And I am glad today for the fact that I have homes all over this earth.

Where is your home? How do you define what home is/where home is?

Megan xo