Visiting "home"
So I am back again, waiting in the RDU airport to make my long trip to Beirut, Lebanon. However, this time is different. I know where I am going; I know there is no black hole; I even have an apartment and roommates waiting for me. But, I realized in the car ride to the airport, after spending 11 days back in Chapel Hill, that my home is expanding. The idea of "home" has changed. There are still people in Chapel Hill whom I consider to be family, but those people exist in many different places including Amherst, MA and now Beirut, Lebanon. So now my question and challenge is where do I "fit in"? Chapel Hill isn't the same that it once was, and Beirut is a very different home, yet part of me fits in all of these places. So when do I get the whole piece? Or does this international community that I have discovered ever become home? Without a location, does it even exist? Once I am able to let go of the idea of location being the main focus of what "home" is, will I finally find it? What felt like home in Chapel Hill was partly the location, but also people I have grown up with, my church family, and my parents. These feelings stem from having to adapt to something and somewhere new everyday. And change is still not easy. But the more I do it, the easier it becomes. And the more I find new places to call home, the more I feel like I fit.

1 Comments:
Hey Ruth, I'm a UCCH member who has only gotten to meet you once. Your topic of Home, really hits a nerve with me, as I too have been looking for Home.
Beirut was my first home -- that's where I was born, believe it or not! But when I went back "home" 20 years after immigrating to the US, I realized it was no longer Home. Even when I walked up the stairs to our old apartment. Then I went to Armenia some years later, which is my ancestral home, and I thought "Everybody there speaks Armenian. Surely I'll feel at home there!" What I discovered was that even though I spoke the same language, everyone referred to me as 'the American'. And my diaspora accent and dialect was quite a bit different from theirs. So, Armenia turned out not to be Home either.
For the many years I lived there, I felt very much like Japan was Home, except of course, I was an outsider. Every time the plane took me to Narita from JFK and we circled over paddy fields before landing, I'd sigh to myself "I'm back home!!"
Then I made my big move back to the U.S. and 'found' NC, and even though it's not Home, I pretend it is. I've come to understand that the only place that will really ever feel like Home is in one of the rooms the Master is preparing for me in his mansion. If it were not so, He would not have promised me a room there.
Ruth, I've been enjoying your blog. I hope you write more often.
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