Occasionally, I get questioned by friends, how I manage to live so far away from home for such a long time; If I miss my family and friends back home; when I am going back home. To these questions, I’m never quite sure what to answer. But the few times when I do respond, I tell them that I have always lived away from home, and these experiences are not new to me; I have lived them before.
My first time away from home, I was about ten years old. It was going to be the beginning of my years of high school; the beginning of a journey on a lonely road that churns and spits you out at the other end, a soldier. This fine soldier that I have become. That first night, I cried after mom had dropped me off in the day. I wanted to go back; I wanted to spend another night in bed close to her. For the first time at a very young age, I would be living far away from the comforts of my home; from the familiar people I called family and friends. But soon the morning came, and I met my first new friend who was every bit just like myself - but a little more advanced with a one week experience of campus. And together, we discovered several other abandoned ones like us. And right there, far far away from home, we formed the best of friendships that have stayed through the test of time, even till this very day.
I spoke to mom today, and I could hear in her voice the longing to see her son again. And in all of the many sentences and jokes we exchanged, the words that echoed the most were the ones that were not spoken. In my mind, I could vividly hear her say to me “when are you coming home?"
And I could only mutter a silent whisper…But I will, and soon.
Only I have plans to move again. But this time I’m not totally sure where. My choice of a grad school to attend and a decent paying job to fund it will determine what city it shall be. At the moment, I have a few options in mind. But I still feel the need to explore some more. And these, are nowhere near home.
Truth is, these days I’m really beginning to agree that home is where you make it to be; and family can be the next stranger on the street who might end up in your bed, and together you wake up one morning to share the same last name, with a child in the middle that looks just the same.
And so again I say, Someday Ma, someday soon I’ll be coming home. But as the pilgrim man that I am, I have learnt to carry home along with me in my mind, and in my memories, and in my heart wherever I may go or may be. And to family? I have been blessed with so much beautiful ones that I never even asked for.
Yet in all, I am ever so glad that I still have you to come to on that day when I do return from whence I left. And that day, soon it shall be :).
