I remember the first
time I called my college dorm room “home.” I ran into one of my 3 beautiful
roommates on campus and when they asked where I was going I responded by saying
“home” before quickly correcting myself and saying “the quad” (as we lovingly
called our room). Walking back to my
room, I didn’t know what to think. On one hand, I was so excited to have
finally subconsciously called this place home, for it meant that this was a
treasured and comforting place to me.
But on the other hand, it gave me a sad feeling. Growing up in the same house in my little
Connecticut town all my life, I had a very concrete and distinct knowledge of
what “home” was. When someone said “home,”
I was barraged with images of our pink house (which is now tan), the donkey
statue in the back yard, our perfect climbing tree, and my tan paisley room which
is desperately trying to return to its roots and be a guest bedroom again. I saw my church, my schools, countless fields
and parks, and adorable houses. I didn’t
want to let go of that for a minute. And somehow, by saying that the quad was
my home, I felt as though I had let a little bit of that go. I didn’t know how I could have more than one
home.
Then I spent the summer
working at a camp in Pennsylvania and went straight to Rwanda for the semester
to study abroad and so spent only a single day at my house from June through
December. I had such deep longings for
my Connecticut home while in both these places.
But, I too missed being at school and spending time in the quad. After a year at school, that had become a bit
of home too. And after two months spend
in the sanctuary of my camp in the woods, well, I missed that home while in
Rwanda. And then even more- when I got
home from Rwanda and was sitting in my room in quaint New England winter
weather, I had such a deep desire for home in Rwanda. It seemed as though each place I went, I both
made a new home and felt like I had lost a home as well. The land of a thousand hills had captured my
heart, and I can’t even begin to list the number of things I miss about that
home (as cheesy as this sentence sounds). Returning to the school I loved felt
so new and strange, and every day that I woke up I longed for Rwanda. I can’t even explain how difficult it was to
be back. I think because Rwanda in so
many ways is the polar opposite of school, it was challenging to be away and I
missed it so deeply. I didn’t know how I
could live so long and so far away from a place that truly was home.
I started thinking
about the concept of home recently when friends were joking with me about if I ever
even went home. They had a point. I go
to college over four hours from my hometown, spent my summer in the woods of Pennsylvania,
went to Rwanda for the semester, and spent my spring break on a service trip- I
hadn’t been home for an extended amount of time for a while.
But what does “home”
even mean? Because the more I travelled, the more I spent time in other
locations, the fuzzier that concept became to me. Instead of only seeing clear pictures of my
darling town when someone said that word, there was a big collage in my mind
now, splattered with pictures of all the places I’ve had the blessing to spend
periods of time in. So when someone
mentions that I don’t spend time at home, or asks me if I’m planning on
returning “home” after graduation, I find myself at a bit of a loss for
words.
Developing many homes
all over doesn’t even make me feel more grounded to this world. I feel like I’m in a constant state where I’m
never fully at home. I can’t be in four
places at once. I can’t help but not
feel completely whole or completely myself, because there’s some of me at each
place. And I think of wonderful people
in my life, some of whom I’ve discussed these feelings with and some I haven’t,
who face this on a larger scale, and I can’t image how they feel.
But don’t we all feel
this way? As human beings, we weren’t
even made for this world. Living in one
place for one’s entire life doesn’t take away that feeling in us that we’re not
completely home. And it’s because we’re simply not, and while we’re living here
in our earthly bodies, we never will be.
In reflecting on this concept of home, I was instantly hit over the head
with this line from scripture: “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we
eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power
that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our
lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Philippians
3:20-21). Our citizenship is in heaven,
and we’ll never fully feel at home until we’re reunited with our Creator and
Savior in His heavenly realm.
It’s a strange thought
that I will most likely only keep making “homes” as life goes on and that these
feelings, which have really only intensified since returning to Rwanda, will
continue. But the knowledge that this
isn’t even my home at all is somehow… comforting? I didn’t know how I could handle being so far
from Rwanda and so long from being back, and yet, with time it has gotten
better. And furthermore, that is an innate
feeling we have of being separated from our eternal home in heaven, and
something we all know and feel. Knowing
that someday I will be completely whole and will have such a strong feeling of
belonging is an exciting and comforting thing.
I really hate to end a
post like this, because I didn’t really get anywhere. And yet, I did? I finally felt as though I could articulate
many of my feelings from being back this semester, and since this blog has been
all about my journey being away from “home,” this seemed like the relevant
place to share this saga.
