On one of my last travels from Paris we had to change trains in Rotterdam. When I walked down the stairs with my suitcases, I didnt realized how nostalgic I would get once I saw the familiar hallway to the platforms. Rotterdam Centraal, the plate notes. My heart sunk. I wanted to go home, to walk the familiar route to my flat, unpack, uncork a bottle and enjoy a night in with my Bear.
I am leaving tomorrow back to Indonesia, first to Borneo and then straight to my internship in Jakarta. It hit me I am leaving not just a city but a life. Three years, never did I realized how that life become a home. The mistakes I learnt. The books I read. The emotions I endured. The roads I biked. The studies I followed. The experiences I lived. The friends I met. The love I found. The laughters I shared.
How can one pack that?
A friend told me that the concept of home is relative, there is no absolute home. If there is one, then it would be in you. For things change, people leave and places disappear. You are there, in the beginning and ever will be. You are home. You decide where you want to live, where you'd like to go, who you'd like to share it with, but you are your home. It's in your brain, in your heart and in your blood. That is home.
As I board that plane tomorrow, you are the ones I will be thinking of. Let me tell you a little secret, this thought kept me awake at nights in fear. To leave the known to the unknown is a choice that I believe will develop one's self, yet scared I still am. Like a little girl lost, scared yet serenaded by the sound of violin.
The little step to another chapter, the journey began with that single step. The journey where, one may ask as I asked myself numerously these past few days. The journey home,
perhaps.
