Home?

I have always had a complex of knowing where home was for me. I always considered Jordan to be my home seeing that is where I was born and raised, it was the closest definition to "home" for me.
But I also remember whenever I returned to the States for Stateside from Jordan, people would ask me, "How does it feel to be home?" I, at the time being a teenager who wasn't too fond of the States, particularly the little itty bitty town my parents forced me to return to, would promptly reply, "I don't really know where my 'home' actually is." The poor folks didn't know what to do with me! They couldn't imagine me feeling or thinking that any other location was home. They would then reply to me, "Home is where the heart is!" I didn't have the "heart" to tell them that would definitely mean that little town was NOT home.

At twenty-two, I am facing the complex of what 'Home' is again. I have struggled for the past 3 years to keep my identity as Jordanian raised as I possibly could, adamantly proclaiming that Jordan will forever and always be my one and only home. (When you get older, you tend to compromise a bit with your former beliefs.) Lately, I've been feeling differently about that. Jordan will always be the childhood home and no amount of memories I form will ever erase or replace those memories. There's nothing that will change the way I feel about my life in Jordan or how I was raised. But now that I am starting to live on my own (and boy is that awesome!), forming my own life (a life I can finally say, "hey, this is me, this is what I want. It's my very own formed life!"), and providing for my own "supply and demand" in life, I am seeing that my desire of my heart is leaning toward a different location. No matter where I go, I always find myself thinking, "I miss home" or "I can't wait to get back home." And now that "home" is a centralized location.

I admit that at first I felt a little bit guilty for replacing Jordan. But I realized, finally, that sometimes you have to let go of childhood things to allow yourself to grow up. I guess this is my way of allowing myself to finally grow up. It's nice, though, to have a place in the States that I can comfortably call a home.

I guess home is really where the heart is.