WHERE IS HOME?

I felt at home so many times, and yet, I'm not sure where home is.

According to Oxford dictionary definition, home is the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.

So, what happens if you lived most of your life in one country and then move to another one? Or if you don't live with your family, then is not home?

I love the fact that in the English language there is differentiation between house and home.

To me Home feels like a state of mind, more than a place.

These are some debatable thoughts on what home could be:

-where your family is,

-in the city where you were born or spent your childhood,

-where you had children and created your own family,

-the place where you go back to after work,

-where you have most of your sleeping time,

-the place you lived in for x years,

-where you keep your belongings,

-when you can walk around butt naked without worrying,

-in the city where you have most of your friends, or where you feel understood and share the same causes.

I could carry on for hours, and I'm sure that while you are reading this you thought of something else as well!

It's so difficult!

I actually had this thought one day on a plane, I was flying from Italy after spending time with my family (I am 100% Italian, but I don't live there), to the UK (where I am currently based). I was sending a text saying "I'm coming home", and realized that I did the same few days before when I was going to Italy.

So, am I going home, or am I going away from home?

Where is home?

I felt at home in many different places, and some not even for very long; but I also lived in many different houses and not all of them felt home.

• I fell in love with Valencia when I was 21, I found happiness, independence and freedom; and still now when I go back, it feels like home. It was then when I understood that home would have never been one place only.

• I felt at home in Watford, where I fell in love with someone and felt deeply loved; started to grow professionally.

• I felt at home in Bermuda, where I had peace, where I was walking on the beach after work and only focused on the ocean sound lulling my thoughts.

• In London, where I spend most of the time, where I can be myself, grow, and where I have my people.

• Where my mum is (probably very Italian thing), she makes it home wherever we are.

• Fiorenzuola or Saarbrucken, is always home with my sisters.

At this stage I definitely think that home is a feeling.

And I know as an expat that this is a thought often torturing us, the need of knowing, understanding where home is.

Well, I think we make home, it just can't be one place only, home is wherever you feel it, and when is in a place that for any reason you have to leave, that only means you capture that sensation, carry it around with you and add it to the next piece of home feeling, so your home will get bigger.