Home Sweet Home
“Frieda, where is home for you?” Sarah asked me after I had explained moving back and forth from Mexico and the States.
My answer echoes with the truths of a poem I once encountered by Ijeoma Umebinyuo—
“so, here you are
too foreign from home
too foreign for here.
never enough for both.”
My dear squadmate, Rachel, just posted a blog where she processes on where home truly is and what it is: “To me it’s a place where we feel loved, accepted, wanted, and missed when we are gone. It’s a place that we feel free to be 100% who we are without fear of ridicule or shame. It’s a place where our deepest and most impactful relationships are. It’s a place that we know so, so well. It’s a place where we feel comfortable in every sense. It’s a place that gives you a sigh of relief every time you return because it’s good to be home. That’s home to me.
But what if that home does not really exist? I mean, what if a place with only those things does not exist? What if that place we call home also brings pain, hurt, and brokenness. Why? Because we are broken people living in a broken world.
So then what? Home ends up being a wonderful and a hurtful place all at the same time. Is that the type of home I am yearning for?”
With Christmas right around the corner, conversations of “home” are inevitable. I can’t help but feel a little guilty and maybe even a little ashamed for it but I don’t feel homesick. I do not struggle with homesickness the way most do or the way I was afraid I would 11 months away.
Yes, I have missed many people and certain little commodities. But I have found home many a times. I have found it in holding my dear Yesica and Telma in Ohio. I have found home in the midst of a goofy group dance in the living room of a sweet friend. I have found home in a country I never imagined I would with new friends to call family— Rwanda.
But I have also had to let go of home over and over again. I have had to grieve relationships, memories, and opportunities over and over again because I am still learning that our treasures should be people. People are our treasure. I can try to guard my heart from loving so many but that is not the way I want to choose to live. So, my heart is spread throughout many places, many countries. My home has truly become the places where my heart is. And my heart lies in so many places.
Frieda Renée
