Home is Where Your Heart is

*This is an entry for the July Blog of the Month Competition

Home has always been a hard word to define by someone who keeps travelling. As an army brat, I have been a victim of the very same complication. It has always been a sensitive subject for me. Whenever I came across this word, or a concept of having a home, I always felt a feeling of sadness creeping up my heart. To me, home was a place that remains constant in your life, no matter where you are travelling or what are you doing. The concept of coming back home was a fantasy to me.

  

I would say that during the lifetime of various army transfers, I tried to make every place a home; but the fear of loosing it one day and moving on, with probably no chance of returning, has always kept that struggle at bay. There has always been a concept of hometown, where your grandparents live, but it's hard to call some place home if you visit it once a year on Eid for not more than 3 days and knowing practically no one there. 

So no matter, how adventurous army life could be, I always longed for a constant home. A place I can always go back to. 

That wish remained a wish even after my father retired as an army doctor, because within few years I have been admitted to FJ and of course the hostels, and my parents decided to move on from cities to cities rather than making home in one. I should clarify before going on that this is not the case with all army brats. My family could be an exception.

Hostel life opened a new chapter in my life. I probably learned more in one year than all my previous life. One of the most important things I realized was that home is not actually a place. Home is a concept. A concept of comfort and peace.

Home is somewhere and anywhere you are comfortable. Home is your mother. Home is your father. Home is your quarreling siblings. Home is your old friends. Home is the people you love. Home is the places you know. Anywhere could be home because home is in your heart.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said and I quote:

"What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you."

I realized that every place I spend my childhood had been a home. Because loosing it felt like loosing a piece of my heart. Now, whenever I enter the gates of FJ hostels, I don't feel homeless. I feel welcomed. Welcomed by the familiar faces and buildings. 

Home is where your heart is. 

And making a home for somebody is making their place in your heart even if you don't have acres.

- Ifrah Tahir (Class of 2019)