Home
I have been home for a week now and it feels strange. This morning I was sitting in Costa, facing a mental block as I try to tackle my year abroad essay, when I banged my head on the corner of the table. We all know this searing kind of pain and it made me want to burst into tears, but not really because of the pain. More because no one said anything and I realised that British people just keep themselves to themselves generally.
I don't think I was fully conscious of what the 'First World' meant before I left it for 5 months. My privileges scream loud and clear at me now and I can't believe I was never aware of these things before. Even the trivial things - I still think twice before drinking tap water.
I thought returning home would bring some stability to the emotional turbulence that this year represents. But more than anything I have the overwhelming feeling that I don't belong here, or anywhere. I recently watched a documentary about the English-born artist Leonora Carrington, who escaped to Mexico as a young woman and is now almost a national hero there. She once said "home is a kind of illusion a lot of us have, being settled doesn't exist really" and never has this rung truer. I am enjoying the home comforts and I don't feel out of place but I feel as if I am going through a semi-disillusionment with the UK and maybe even the Western world. These are big and pretentious words and I'm not going to pretend that I know everything now that I've lived abroad, because I don't. If anything, going to Mexico made me realise how little I know and how much I have to learn.
It's almost as if I thought this learning process would momentarily halt as soon as I touched down in Heathrow, but returning to the other side has provided another one of many wake-up calls. Home is a strange concept, in our heads it is fixed and unchanging, but in reality its static nature can't always provide stability. When this hits us in the face (as it usually isn't a feeling which comes about gradually) it's frustrating, and doesn't have an easy (or any) solution. I'm trying to revel in the familiarity (and the new unfamiliarity) of home right now, even it feels wrong.
I don't think I was fully conscious of what the 'First World' meant before I left it for 5 months. My privileges scream loud and clear at me now and I can't believe I was never aware of these things before. Even the trivial things - I still think twice before drinking tap water.
I thought returning home would bring some stability to the emotional turbulence that this year represents. But more than anything I have the overwhelming feeling that I don't belong here, or anywhere. I recently watched a documentary about the English-born artist Leonora Carrington, who escaped to Mexico as a young woman and is now almost a national hero there. She once said "home is a kind of illusion a lot of us have, being settled doesn't exist really" and never has this rung truer. I am enjoying the home comforts and I don't feel out of place but I feel as if I am going through a semi-disillusionment with the UK and maybe even the Western world. These are big and pretentious words and I'm not going to pretend that I know everything now that I've lived abroad, because I don't. If anything, going to Mexico made me realise how little I know and how much I have to learn.
It's almost as if I thought this learning process would momentarily halt as soon as I touched down in Heathrow, but returning to the other side has provided another one of many wake-up calls. Home is a strange concept, in our heads it is fixed and unchanging, but in reality its static nature can't always provide stability. When this hits us in the face (as it usually isn't a feeling which comes about gradually) it's frustrating, and doesn't have an easy (or any) solution. I'm trying to revel in the familiarity (and the new unfamiliarity) of home right now, even it feels wrong.

Really really BLIMMIN accurate!!! You capture my thoughts, I thank you for this.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck in Lyon you sweet sweet child of the world xxxxxxxxxx
thanks elza!!!!
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