Priceless
A close girlfriend of mine has started a blog, and one of the posts puts into words all those conflicting emotions of a person who doesn't really have a home. Whether it's because you're an Army brat, or a dual- or triple-citizen, or like myself and so many of my friends, chance and choice have sent you dotting across the world, "living globally" sounds wonderfully exotic but has a lot of undesirable consequences.
I'm "home" in Tokyo now, but it's my mom's studio. I miss my room, the one I called home for eight years growing up, but someone else is living there now. All of my things are in boxes, scattered between Tokyo and Texas, and I choose what to wear out of a suitcase that gets messier by the day. Few of my high school friends have made it back this summer. What stretches before me are five weeks of trying to recapture the sense that I belong here, acutely and desperately missing the absence of many people who made me feel that way before.
A real home is priceless. In the emotional stability it provides, the sense of security it gives. And to a person like me who loves to travel and spend time in other countries, there is a bitter irony in this one simple truth: I cannot love the excitement and stimulation of travel and life abroad without a place to call home. And it is so much more than a mere physical container to store one's belongings--a home is the densest locus of a web of relationships where one not only feels loved, but also feels needed. What groundlessness does is stretch that web to the breaking point. In the age of IM and Skype and webcams, it can be stretched farther and wider than ever; but these things, however convenient they may be, cannot replicate a relationship blessed by proximity. This is the curse of the globetrotting age; a life cursed by "constant flux" and excitement without security.
Give me a home, a real one with family and friends constantly nearby, with "that same scent of clean laundry" filling the air. I would give a lifetime of flight and frequent flyer miles away to have a real home again.
You have no idea what groundlessness does to you. You're always losing, most literally. Meeting people and saying goodbye--story of my life! Creating something great and then having to leave it--even if it were a life's work. Add to that a myriad of identity crises. You almost have to build up a level of impermeable superficiality to deal with it, so that you can maintain somewhat of a core to what you think is who you are. Could you really imagine yourself in constant flux. I mean, your entire self. Your values always in question, your personality always trying to adjust, your life style always altering. Do you even know what it's like? And excitement! Excitement in my life is the least of my concerns. Go ahead and enjoy that, but I'm truly tired of it. I really am.Like Sohko, I'm ready to stop moving around and have a real home. A place that I can depend on, where I can stay for longer than 9 months. Because when you have a home, as she so beautifully puts it, "accidents are great changes that awaken your senses to a swirling world of excitement. It allows you to appreciate all that is stable and all that is changing."
I'm "home" in Tokyo now, but it's my mom's studio. I miss my room, the one I called home for eight years growing up, but someone else is living there now. All of my things are in boxes, scattered between Tokyo and Texas, and I choose what to wear out of a suitcase that gets messier by the day. Few of my high school friends have made it back this summer. What stretches before me are five weeks of trying to recapture the sense that I belong here, acutely and desperately missing the absence of many people who made me feel that way before.
A real home is priceless. In the emotional stability it provides, the sense of security it gives. And to a person like me who loves to travel and spend time in other countries, there is a bitter irony in this one simple truth: I cannot love the excitement and stimulation of travel and life abroad without a place to call home. And it is so much more than a mere physical container to store one's belongings--a home is the densest locus of a web of relationships where one not only feels loved, but also feels needed. What groundlessness does is stretch that web to the breaking point. In the age of IM and Skype and webcams, it can be stretched farther and wider than ever; but these things, however convenient they may be, cannot replicate a relationship blessed by proximity. This is the curse of the globetrotting age; a life cursed by "constant flux" and excitement without security.
Give me a home, a real one with family and friends constantly nearby, with "that same scent of clean laundry" filling the air. I would give a lifetime of flight and frequent flyer miles away to have a real home again.
posted by the Assistant at 9:10 PM
1 Comments:
What can I say? My first thought after sigining a twelve month contract for my job in Portland was that I don't have to move again--at least not in three or four months. As I return home to Tokyo less frequently and for shorter durations these days, it makes me realize the importance of creating MY HOME. In fact, even if I do return home, the one I grew up in, it is no longer "my home", but rather a place I know I can return to but not stay at for long periods. I have started to feel the need of creating a safe haven that is both comforting and entertaining. So, does all of this mean we are growing up, ready to ground ourselves?
I love that we feel the same way. I also feel that we the "Global Nomads" need a good sense of balance between the chaotic, exhilerating travels, and the quiet, reassurance of "home" in order to stay sane. There's so much stimulation we can all take at once.
Post a Comment
<< Home