Home, is it really where the heart is?
Its been a week since I left Mozambique.
The tiny lady that couldn’t even reach the overhead luggage compartment next to me stared as I cried fat tears of heartbreak on the plane to Abu Dhabi. There had been a minute of panic when I didn’t have the money for my flight home which eventually led to having to book a 38 hour trip via the middle east and Thailand before hitting Perth.
I didn’t even notice. All I could think of was when I would be back.
Back in the motherland, back in Africa.
Home is beautiful though.
In with my parents.
Mum nagging to clean my room.
Old friends that laugh the hearty laugh of people that don’t give a fuck.
Clean.
Cool.
The traffic moves swiftly. The people walk fast. The nighttime streets hold no danger. Other than maybe a disorientated kangaroo hopping in front of your car.
I feel miles from anywhere.
Clinging to the warmth of familiar faces in foreign lands. Letting go but not “letting go”.
I like the person I am here. I like the person I am there more.
Africa breathed new life into me. Ignited something inside that I hadn’t known before. It made things formerly so important seem arbitrary. In slipping back into the well worn path of my old life, it is easy to slip into the well worn path of old habits.
My heart is still among the palm trees. The market. The sassy mummas. The foreign languages. The red desert. The mountains.
The liberty.
I’m not quite ready for the streamlined organisation of home.
In the end though, everything is a choice.
The liberty is truly inside of me.
Sure, it can be ignited by my surroundings, ignited by the unbridled nature of chaos. Of texture. Of the rich spice that envelops my craving pallet. By the adventure I so insatiably dream of.
But eventually it can only manifest as something internal.
I am free.
Free.
X