Whenever anyone asks me if I miss the US, my prompt answer is “Nope. Not really.” It’s an easy response to a question, that, to me, asks me to consider a life I never had. I went abroad (to Peru) immediately after graduating college and only briefly moved home once in the past two years. For a few months, I worked, saved up money, and left again (to France). To be completely honest, I haven’t associated the US as a country with “home” in a long time. But. (There’s always a but.)
“Home” is a concept I’ve ruminated on a lot.
I’ve been fortunate enough to experience the meaning of the phrase “home is a feeling, not a place” on multiple occasions. It’s a warm feeling that bubbles in your chest and sometimes spills over down your cheeks, a salty reminder that no matter how much we may want to sometimes, we really don’t dictate our destinies. It’s the sort of lesson you realize will take your entire life to learn, this act of trusting a foreign feeling to engulf you in a vulnerable moment.
I was born with a practical, no-nonsense shoulder angel.
Surrendering my most instinctive faculties to something as cursory as a feeling is not only a challenging exercise, but a painful one. The romantic, ironic whimsy of the world is utterly uninterested in the workings of the coincidences that it creates, but I am. If I hadn’t done that, then this wouldn’t have happened, but which of the little “that’s” actually caused the compass’ needle to move? Do the big “that’s” in life even matter?
In Strasbourg, I’ve met many expats who came here under similar conditions to mine. Some moved for a partner, some arrived to enroll in a degree program, others to begin teaching placements. I think I have yet to meet anyone who claimed Strasbourg as the original destination they had in mind when they left wherever they came from. This is a common theme for people who leave their country of origin: ending up somewhere unexpected.
The unexpected is tumultuous and exhilarating, and before you know it you’ve grasped something familiar.
Strasbourg has become a beautiful tribute to the holiday season. During the last month of my French course, I bore witness to the hundreds of thousands of lights that get strung up every year by city employees. When they first went on, I exclaimed out loud, like a child, at their brilliance. Now, I grumble when I have to push through throngs of tourists clogging the streets and alleys, and when people ask me if I miss the US, I don’t hear the last part of the question.
Instead, my mind automatically substitutes “home” for “US.”
I still don’t think the thought “Wow, I miss the US” has ever crossed my mind so explicitly, but it is funny to think that in the time that I’ve been settling into my new home and life in Strasbourg, I’ve come to be able to hold equal the concept of leaving my home for the holidays with that of going home for the holidays.
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