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Reflections on going home...

Writer's picture: mynameisthandiemynameisthandie

Updated: Feb 1, 2020




Hi Lovelies,


In December, I went back to Kenya and it put so much in perspective for me.


I have lived in so many different places in my life and so it makes me feel restless if I stay in one place for an extended period of time. Right now, I feel super antsy about living in my city and want to leave after living here for 9 years. It's crazy because this is the longest I've lived in one place in my whole life.


With all of this, the idea of home has never really been attached to a place - rather a feeling of calm and complete acceptance. When the energy of where you are, who you are and what you want are all in harmony. I think that's what feels like home to me. It has to be a complete, well-rounded feeling. I felt that when I was in Kenya. I felt at home for the first time in a long long time.


So it got me thinking, I wanted to talk more about why I haven't truly felt at home and what that word means to me. I think that a lot of the time, we don't even realise that society defines our feelings for us before we even can. As an unconventional girl, I can attest that home isn't always where 'the heart is'.


I want to delve deeper into what I had said previously about energy. Places have vibes, my good dudes. Some vibes can be good, very good - and some otherwise. When you go on holiday, you can read a vibe that a place has, but you're more likely to be distracted by the fact that you're excited to be on holiday. When you live somewhere, you know whether you can adapt to a place or whether you cant.


Personally, for the city I live in, I have a way of dressing that sticks out a lot. Sis likes to be a bit formal. In a casual city that makes me seem a bit uptight. I don't get it because I grew up in places where you could step on people's necks with #fashion but it doesn't seem so here. For me, that's been a big thing. I say a lot that fashion is a mode of self-expression and I feel like that has been muffled a lot.


Another thing is that I know that I cannot reach my professional goals in South Africa as a whole. The industry I want to enter entirely does not exist here. When on holiday you never look at these things. You're there to relax. I also understand these are gross understatements of what it means to feel at home, but for me, I guess, home is a place of acceptance.


Home is a place where you can express who you are. That and it is well received with the people who surround you, regardless of a blood connection. If you are received well in who you are in a place where you reside and can express yourself freely in doing what you may want to within reason, then I think that constitutes to being at home.


Whilst I was in Kenya, I felt like everything wasn't as forceful as it was here in South Africa because of the above. It doesn't necessarily mean that I will move to Kenya - but it means to say that it is a place that will always feel safe to me


Home is where the energy of where you are, who you are and what you want are all in harmony.



love

T.




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