Coming Home...?

I have had a difficult time in the past months trying to put some things I’ve been experiencing emotionally into words.

In November I returned to my home state of California for the first time in nearly 1-½ years. In my head it was like a glorious homecoming and for the first few weeks that’s what it felt like. It was overwhelming at times, but overall it felt amazing to be back in the presence of family and friends, and it was as if nothing had changed. My relationships seemed to simply pick up where they had left off before I left.

But after a few weeks, I began to get an odd longing for “home”, which immediately confused me. How could I be longing for “home” when I was at home, the place that I have called home my entire life? This made me restless and a bit frustrated. I was hoping that California would fulfill all of my expectations of “being home” and it seemed like there was something missing. When I was around people I loved and cared about I immediately felt at home but in general it felt like something was missing. I couldn’t figure out what I was longing for at that point. Was I longing for the life I had before I left? Was it my “home” in China? I couldn’t identify it.

It wasn’t until a conversation a few nights ago with my friend Michael that everything began to make a bit more sense. He has been living in China for 2 years and goes to the States for about 3 months each year to see family and friends. I started to explain to him the way I was feeling and he immediately understood. He explained it as almost living 2 lives: One here in China and one in the US. And because there are people you care about and love in both places you never feel completely at home in one place.

Thinking about it like that makes the old clique “Home is where the heart is” much more real. When I went to California I was expecting an overwhelming feeling of being at home just because that’s the physical place I called home my entire life. But really, the times that I felt at home in the US were not because of the place, the geography, the physical location, but because of the people I was surrounded by.

Home is never a city, state, or country. Home is a hug. Home is dinner with good friends. Home is fixing a car with Dad. Home is having the kids at the orphanage over to watch a movie. Home is a long train ride with great conversation.

With that in mind, I can honestly say tt’s good to be home.