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The feeling of home

What is the difference between living at home and living abroad?

For me, home is in Australia where I grew up. I’ve travelled to many countries, but only truly lived in 2 countries apart from my home country - in a small African nation called Lesotho and in London in the United Kingdom.

I notice that I feel different in my skin when I am at living at home. There is a vague awareness of undefined but palpable inhibitions, and I feel less motivated to explore and find adventure, and I carry around with me a reduced desire to push boundaries.

In contrast, when I am living overseas, I feel more energised and alive. There are new things around each corner, unchartered territory to explore and unfamiliar situations that intrigue me. Its not that the same situations don’t exist at ‘home’. Its just that the me who is at home is not the same me overseas, and so I tend to engage with the world in an uninhibited and fully awake manner. Its also worth mentioning that I like the me who is overseas. A lot.

In a deep conversation with a friend who always challenges me to think, I posed the question: What is the difference between living at home and living abroad.

My friend, Sipho, nailed it: ‘Home is where all your insecurities surface and all your history is present.’

I could not have put it better.

And in my experience, home is a mindset, a collection of inhibitions, expectations and histories that band together to weigh me down. Home overwhelms my consciousness and fogs my glasses. In the end, I don’t have another story to tell and get smothered by accumulated unconscious anecdotes and beliefs.

I got glimpses of this idea when I travelling in south-east Asia, but it was not until I was living in London that I pulled this concept into conscious awareness.

I realised, almost with a gasp when I landed in London, that my history was what I said it was.

No one knew who the historical “I” was, and because of that, I didn’t feel guilty or judge myself.

You didn’t know me. I wasn't someone's brother, cousin or son.

You didn’t know my upbringing. I wasn't from a certain poor family.

You didn’t know where I lived. I wasn’t from a certain working class suburb

You didn’t know where I came from. I wasn’t from a small country town.

You didn’t know my religious background, and I wasn't judged because of my families religion.

You didn’t know what my mother did for work, and I wasn’t judged because of my mother's job as a bus driver.

You didn’t know about my father’s mental sickness, and I wasn’t judged because of my father's visits to a mental hospital.

I was just me. Because you didn’t know about my history, you didn’t judge. And because you didn’t judge me, I felt free and didn’t judge me either.

In London, I was as far away from home as I could physically get and on other side of the world, I was undefined.

Away from my history, I felt complete.

Away from my history, I stood confident, tall and didn't take any attitude.

I did not feel compromised by my history like I did when I was at home.

Thus was not challenged about who I was.

And as a write about the feeling of those glory days, I can taste the sweet excitement and billowy feeling in my abdomen.

I heard someone say that “Everywhere I go, there I am”, and so, I am the one who experiences the feeling and creates the experience...

I didn't feel the need to explain myself then.

As I reflect, it makes me wonder why I need to explain myself in my current now at all.

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