If Home isn't a place...

I was looking for home and for so long. I traveled to countries I've never heard of before in search of a place I could call my home. I was always told that someday I'll be able to live in a city, settled, and create my own home. I looked for that city in all the countries I could see.

My Google timeline says I have been to 24 countries, 257 cities, and 1315 places.

If you ask me, I would say Google Maps didn't exist when I didn't have a phone. And even then, I was looking for home.

If you ask me, I can't tell you which city was for me to stay.

I have spent years wondering if I could ever be able to find my place.

If I were to create a home where would that be?

Eventually I stuck to the phrase - the world is my oyster. And maybe someday I would travel the entire world. This suited my narrative of being an explorer, belonging to the entire world than to one place.

When I was locked down in one, I finally began to wonder what was I really running from?

I made my house my home then. I cleansed it often, and I thought I'd never be able to stay for long in other places, other cities. Maybe this is what "settled" means, I thought to myself.

Until more time elapsed, the seasons changed, and so did I.

These days I find myself in peace.

Everywhere I go, I can find a corner reserved for me.

A room, a corner, a seat at a café, at a friend's crowded place, at my ancestral home, my parent's house, my sister's bunk- it could be anything and I'd feel okay.

A wretched little untidy room, a large sunny front-porch- put me anywhere and I'd be able to sit and write.

And when I am with my thoughts, I feel I'm home.

Maybe home isn't a place. Maybe it isn't something you look for outside of you.

Maybe home is within you. You cleanse that part every day.

Maybe home is a mindset - you are safe wherever you are.

Maybe home is a space - you feel expansive wherever you are.

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