Saturday, May 31, 2014

Home

"Home is where your heart is." "Home is wherever I'm with you." "Home is where you hang your hat."

The dictionary describes home as a shelter which is the usual residence of a person family, as well as the place in which a persons's domestic affections are centered. I'm going home this week, to my US home. It is exciting, and a bit weird feeling (a good weird) all at the same time. In my head, sometimes I forget that time has not stopped while I have been away, that the children in my life will have grown, and that my family and friends have carried on with their daily lives while I am off adventuring.

Since I am now living in a country that is mainly populated by westerners, it is easy for me to blend in, at least until I start talking. With the help of my flatmate (who is undoubtedly far more stylish than I am), I have acquired enough clothes from this hemisphere that I am able to not look too American. And New Plymouth is a fairly tight-knit community, so I often run into familiar faces around town. But once I start to talk, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that I have come from afar. My friends here joke that one day they will teach me how to speak correctly. I have made a few attempts at a kiwi accent, much to their amusement. Closest I can really get with any specific words is "awesome" and "awful", which sound more like "oar-some" and "oar-ful."

Once I do reveal my foreign-ness, top question is always "where are you from?", which occasionally is phrased as "where is home for you?" In the technical sense, home is Missouri. But, home is also New Plymouth, New Zealand, and Kumamoto, Japan, and Nagoya, Japan. Home is Kansas City, where I lived after college (well, technically Olathe, but that is possibly being overly technical haha), and home is wherever I can visit my parents and siblings.

Last week, I was trying to explain to a friend here how you can be torn between two places, or even three. I feel that it is something which can only be completely understood by those who have experienced living abroad. Some of it has to do with reverse culture shock (which I will be experiencing in a different way than ever before, as I'll be going from winter to summer!!). Another aspect is knowing how to share your experience with those you love. Since they could not see the sights with you and enjoy the experiences, you want to tell them every little bi about your adventures, but the photos never seem to do the scenery justice, and the stories you tell are only good to the your listeners the first ten times you tell them :)

This trip home is exciting more than anything. It has been a year since I have seen any of my family except my brother when he visited earlier this year, which turns out is a very long time to go without seeing those you love, even when the time has absolutely flown by. It is also exciting because my sister is getting married :) :) :) And it is exciting because I will get to share a piece of my American home with some of my Kiwi family who will also be visiting the US (they flew off today, slightly jealous that they got a head start!). Lastly, I am excited because at the end of my two week visit (which I know will be far too short), I get to return to my NZ home. Last week, immigration kindly granted me a 6 month visa to continue working here (gotta be honest, I was hoping for a year, but we will see what else the future holds), so I will be returning here just in time for dress rehearsals for Phantom of the Opera!

Well, now that I have re-read this and am about to hit the bright orange "publish" button, it seems like it is quite rambly (just made that verb tense up), but I feel that those of you who have traveled, and/or lived in other places, especially other countries, understand what I might mean when I say you can have many homes. I try to avoid going off on too many tangents in these posts, but as I am prepping to time travel and take bits of my life here to share with those "back home," I thought I would share my thoughts with you my dear readers :)

This is a song that was played at least on a weekly basis at my apartment in Vienna. Five American girls sharing life in Europe, knowing the time would be all too short but that we would always have the bond of that wonderful time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjFaenf1T-Y



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