I have been living between two worlds for several years. I spend the summer in my hometown, and for the winter I choose one of the warmer coasts. We have a house in our hometown - a house inherited by my husband. When we raise our wings for the winter, we always rent an apartment because we never stay in the same place twice in a row. And no, we are not rich, we do not live in luxury, but both my husband and I have remote jobs, and heating our own house in our homeland in winter costs quite a lot of money. We can rent an apartment in a warm country and enjoy the sun for just the money we would spend on heating our house for a month in winter. So, our budget does not suffer much, but for the summer we always go to our native Baltic Sea.
I remember when we were coming home this year in May, we were greeted by rain and coolness, and something sweetly painful moved in my chest. I walked across the meadow near the house on the outskirts of the city, the evening wind blew the grass, I stood under a tree, and everything here seemed so close to me, even the rain.
Who am I in this country? It seems that I mean nothing among the other thousands like me. And what is that land for me? That is the whole story.
Those who have lived abroad for at least a year will understand me: it's good to come back, it's not easy to leave, but you can't stay anymore - the world is calling for you.
That's how you wander like an eternal wanderer: half of your heart travels with you, and half is always in your homeland.
Sometimes it seems that longing can be lived with, it becomes a part of you. But the greatest tribute of the soul of an emigrant is that cruel feeling when abroad, among strangers, no matter how long you live, how much you try, what you do, you still feel like a stranger, and when you return to your homeland, you realize that you are just as far away from people here, because you changed a lot already. And you are far away from people and their concerns here. And also, because you bring with you a much broader view of the world, to yourself and others, because you learned a lot while living in a foreign country.
In the first days, when you come back, it seems that the city even smells. When you walk down the street, you feel that even the birds are chirping louder - that endless longing...
But what is the birthplace? The dictionary of word meanings says: homeland; something given from birth. For me, the homeland is the land of my parents, where my parents are, but actually my birthplace may not be a homeland at all. Yes, I can call myself a half-emigrant - wherever I go, I leave a piece of my heart, but when I return, I don't find that piece here, and when I leave again, I long for it the way a person with an amputated limb feels an amputated body part.
My homeland - a home where I feel good, calm, where I feel like myself, no matter where, anywhere, in any corner of the world. But this has not been my home since birth. After all, we carry the real home within us, so we are also our birthplace. Because I and only I am what was given to me from birth. But then where does that longing come from?
But apparently, that's my fate of wide-spread wings - an eternal wanderer, nowhere with 100% heart.
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With love, @madeirane
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