Longing for home
Some people advice to not go back to places where you were happy.
Maybe in some way because you will not find what once was there.
Germany has been my home for eight years. The country saw me grow since I arrived when I was an 18 year old freshly graduated from high school.
It’s going to be three years since I left. First I was travelling. Discovering different corners of the world. Now, I’m on a mission to build a home. What once was so desired, now I repel it.
Before I could be taking trains, buses, planes, you name the transportations means, to get to know new places. I wanted to do everything, go everywhere, discover different ways of living. Now I do not want to be constantly on the go. That thirst to be on the road has ceased.
Getting to know strangers is one of my biggest hobbies. There’s a huge novelty in it. It’s like travelling inside someone’s mind. It is a discovery of a new way of thinking and living. Now I long to spend time with my friends. The ones that you can be with in pyjamas and chat over a cup of coffee at their homes. The ones that are going to make fun of you if you trip over and spill the coffee over you. The ones that will tell you what they think because they love you.
Many digital nomads I have met, on a long enough timeline, they mention the longing for home. Or the other way around, once they start having a sense of home in a place, they realize how much they were missing it.
Coming back to Germany is like going back with an ex, only to break up again. It is realizing everything I have built here. Being extremely grateful. Happy that it happened. Sad for the loss.
Many thoughts are bombarding my mind. Questioning myself over and over. Seeing the pros and cons from places. Observing how people make connections and build relationships. How they manage life.
Athens was my home for some time last year. I feel like I didn’t choose it, the city chose me. I wrote a bit about it in this post:
At the end of the year when I went back to Athens I felt like I was more connected with people. That the energy of the city was more similar with my internal energy. I was grateful for seeing the sunshine almost daily. For the warmth of its people. I loved my job. I loved going to the coding school. I felt loved and I felt I could give love.
When I’m in Germany I have to do a mental exercise of reminding myself why I wanted to leave. How fed up I was from the eternal winters. For how much I hated the many days when I was not seeing the sun, when it is dark after 4pm. The rain, the cold, specially the grayness of the sky and how it seems like that gray vibe goes inside of people.
Because I often see the bright side. Of seeing my friends. Laughing constantly about many nonsenses. Seeing the stability one can get in Germany. The conditions, the social benefits, how things have a structure.
Those were worries that were not present in my life. And interestingly enough, my mind shifted to think about those topics. Maybe that’s growing up. Maybe it just means that I am tired from being on the road and I want some building blocks in my life I can associate to a specific location I choose and want to live at.
I tend to be impatient. I often repeat to myself the word PATIENCE in capital letters. I like to do this exercise of seeing what I have achieved, what I have done, what I have lived, the moments and experiences I have had in my life. I could die and I would be fine with it. Not that I want to. But I am happy and proud of having taken the courage of fighting for what I wanted. Even though that means taking another untraveled route, being very often the weird one in the room. I believe when I meet my weirdos, it makes it even more special.
Celia, a good friend of mine, told me the other day that I can’t expect Madrid to be the same as Germany for me. In the first one I have been living around three months. In the second one eight years.
It helped me get some perspective. It was a reality check of my tunnel vision and how impatient I can get.
Doing the math it’s easy. 8 years Germany. 3 years with my life on the road. If I want to make a home, I guess I just have to keep showing up. Keep on getting to know people, make connections in a genuine way and stay in Madrid. In a long enough timeline, I want to believe that the sense of home will grow. It is already happening, just one bit at a time. I will keep reminding myself the word patience in capital letters. I want to trust that the Julia of the past made the right decision of choosing Madrid as a home. Because I had different motivations that made me choose to stay there. So I want to stick with that decision for a while to see the outcome. Because I want to, even though it seems like a fight for building a home.
Do you have a place that feels like home to you? How is your relationship with the word “home”? Is there a place that you chose to leave, you are happy with the decision but at the same time you miss it? I read you.
Have a good week.
I love you very much world,
Julia