"Leaving
home can only happen because there is a home to leave. And the leaving is never
just a geographical or spatial separation; it is an emotional separation -
wanted or unwanted. Steady or ambivalent. (...) Home is much more than shelter;
home is our centre of gravity. (...) When we move house, we take with us the
invisible concept of home - but it is a very powerful concept. Mental health
and emotional continuity do not require us to stay in the same house or the
same place, but they do require a sturdy structure on the inside - and that
structure is built in part by what has happened on the outside. The inside and
the outside of our lives are each the shell where we learn to live."
Jeanette Winterson,"Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?"
- People who move home don’t know
what to expect. They will never know what it feels like until it happens to
them. “Home movers” need to find their balance and must realize that home can
move with them, if they let themselves adapt. It doesn’t mean they have to
leave everything behind, it just means they are learning to live. -
I moved to Lisbon three years ago, to
study. It wasn’t a choice; it was what the academic bureaucracies chose for me;
my average wasn’t enough to get into the University I wanted. Looking back in
time, I kind of wish I had stayed in my hometown. I kind of feel like I missed
so much that was part of my life before. Kind of; because coming to Lisbon taught me much more
than I could ever imagine. Leaving
home, just like Jeanette Winterson wrote, was more than leaving a geographical
space.
I spent
three years feeling dislocated when it came to belonging somewhere. I knew that
“home” was Porto, my house, my family, my
friends, my things… I also knew that every time I went there for the weekend, I
could have all of that back, even if just for two days. I just had to get on a
bus and everything would be exactly the way it was. But then, each time I went
back to Lisbon,
I would cry so badly and I would be so sad; each trip back to the capital was a
reminder of everything I was leaving behind and the three years I would spend
away from it. Yet in my mind I would go back to Porto
after a few years, so it never really made sense to be connected to this
temporary city. I never made much friends, I never explored much of the city
and definitely didn’t get out much of my apartment.
But all of that changed a few weeks ago. Something I
wasn’t expecting and which changed my
concept of “home”.
It was a
normal weekend visiting my family. We talked, we had our meals all together at
the table, we watched TV, we played; but somehow it all felt very strange. I
sensed something different. They didn’t really care about my days in Lisbon; they didn’t ask
me about school; they didn’t ask me about my friends, or anything about what I
was doing. And when they did, it was just to be polite. I started to realize
that they didn’t see me the same way they did before. Not that they did it on
purpose, but I didn’t matter that much to them. I was spending most of the time
somewhere else and sort of belonged to another reality now. It knocked me out!
For the first time I was feeling left out of what I had always called my home
and crying for being away from Lisbon. How I cried that weekend… I thought this
must have been the feeling of not having a family. It was like someone had
taken away my solid ground and I didn’t have anywhere to stand on. Everything
was just thin air and I was floating.
The next
days were very confusing. I was having a hard time accepting what was happening
and I couldn’t understand why it was happening. I didn’t understand why this
was happening just now, after so long. My appearance was apathetic and numb for
a few days; until a friend of mine, who had been through the same, and Jeanette
Winterson helped me understand my confusion.
When I move away from home, I have to adapt
myself; to let my body and my mind adapt to the new environment. The things I
leave behind will also naturally adapt and I have to do the same. Things change
and that is a natural part of life: when we hurt ourselves, our skin creates a
crust; when the sun goes down, the petals on the flowers close; when the soil
is dry, the tree roots stretch and seek for water.
If my space changes through time, I can’t wish to be
in a past space; I have to be in the present. And I guess that is why it took
me so long to finally realize that “home” was changing for me. I was wishing so
many times to go back, that I was living in the past during the last three years
of my life. I didn’t change; I didn’t adapt myself the same way that the rest of
the people did. My body was in Lisbon,
but my mind was in the home I had left behind. My parents probably adapted
quickly, because I was their 6th child going away to live somewhere
else; they were used to having their children going away. But for me, this was
all new. And so, when it hit me, it felt like a bomb exploding. It was like I
was holding an elastic band to October 2009 and suddenly it broke.
Jeanette Winterson wrote that “mental health and emotional continuity do not require us to
stay in the same house or the same place, but they do require a sturdy
structure on the inside”. After reading this passage, it came to my senses that
my structure was destroyed. I lost my mental health and emotional continuity
all at once and it only happened because my outside was a lie. I was forcing
myself to live something which wasn’t real, living in a temporary place, and by
doing so, my inside couldn’t keep up with the outside. Life needs to be
balanced, and if something is heavier than the other, eventually it will give
in. “The inside and the outside of our lives are each the shell where we learn
to live”; thus, I have to learn to live in both shells at the same time. That
is how I keep sanity and the sturdy structure Jeanette Winterson writes about.
That is how I will keep myself from falling down again.
Sharing the same “family” concept with my
family, but not sharing the same “home” concept with them is a difficult
situation for me to understand. I know now that they can be separated, but I
also know that they can be put together again. It will take time, adaptation
and above all a sturdy structure built by a strong mind. In due time, after I
have gone back to my hometown and reconnected the family ties, I can build a
new home again.
- When I moved
home, I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what it felt like until it
happened to me. I wish to all the other “home movers” that they find their
balance and that they can realize, just like I did, that home can move with us
if we let ourselves adapt. It doesn’t mean we have to leave everything behind,
it just means that we are learning to live. –
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