Home-ish

It’s such a weird feeling to be in the place I’ve called home for 24 years and be homesick.

Homesick for the life I’ve had the past year.

To look around at people and places that I’ve always known and feel so strange.

My head is somewhere else, pieces of my heart sprinkled across oceans.

The hardest part is the weight that sat on my shoulders as soon as I landed.

Traveling, I could sit on the beach for hours, listen to reggae and enjoy being alive.

Here? I sit and do nothing and feel lousy. I hear this voice tell me to get moving. Get a job. Make a plan. Do something.

Who is this voice?

I thought it was my family, maybe society. Maybe it’s all the questions as soon as I get home.

Or maybe it’s just me. The version of me I left behind last year.

The version of me who was constantly moving, rushing through my days, always having somewhere to be and something to do.

Maybe I’m the one putting the pressure on myself.

So what now?

I don’t need to feel normal the second I get back home.

I don’t need to run away again to be carefree.

Maybe it’s okay that home feels strange right now.

Maybe it’s okay that I need some time to adjust to life here.

I’m not the same person I was when I left, so of course things are going to be different.

Coming home isn’t about going back to who I was.

It’s about learning how to bring who I’ve become into this life that was waiting for me.

I can draw, write, sing, dance. I can sit on the couch and do nothing.

I can take the pressure off myself.

I don’t have to have answers for what’s next.

The peace I found overseas doesn’t have to stay there.

And it’s okay to feel a little off while I try to find it here.