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My companion is quickly getting tired of me, the novelty of a new girlfriend wearing off. He wants to hang out with his buddies as before, drinking and playing pool in the bar. I won’t let him without a fight: I didn’t leave all my friends and my comfy life behind for that! I whine and demand, I get clingy, I don’t recognize myself. I cry myself to sleep. How long is this terrible time going to last? Who can I talk to? Does anybody even like me here? What am I doing here? Should I go home?
I get a driver’s license – my first. It’s fun driving the large boat around, a Ford Elite 2-door, especially with this little traffic on these rural roads. The purchase of a home – another first – is the next step in my adjustment; I literally get my foot in the door in this new environment. The house has a garden and I am digging in, the dirt gliding loose and soft though my fingers. The plants are growing well in this climate, carrots and lettuces smoothing their way into my taste and favour. This is familiar to me, makes me think of home, the weeding so soothing and automatic, leaving my mind to wander freely.
I make new friends to my taste who can actually carry on conversations that make sense to me, some of them from elsewhere too. We laugh about our ideas and the differences we noticed around us. There’s safety in numbers. My brain produces some endorphins and I am actually enjoying myself. It has been a year since I left home. Life is beginning to make sense again.
I have lived an almost equal number of years in my new country and in my country of birth. Nevertheless, I have accepted that my new home will never feel like home. Yes, I have adjusted, found a job, built a career and even had a taste of the education system by earning a degree. I have a daughter who was born here. To her, this is home. ‘You can’t go home again.’ I now know what that sentence means. Although I left my home out of free will, I have lost the sense of an exterior home, of a home country. I built a new life after divorce, made connections with friends and have a meaningful life. I would not have done a thing differently, even if I had known everything beforehand.
What did I gain by leaving home? I have found my home inside myself, within my brain, after discovery of my ability to adapt. I feel I can live anywhere, in any country, undergo any number of changes and still survive. The human spirit is my home: it is indomitable.
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