Home is Elsewhere

They say that home is where the heart is. I know that I haven’t found mine as yet. Like a drifter, I wander around looking for that place I could call home. How did I get to this point? Nowhere is perfect, I’ve learnt this the hard way. A friend once told me that regardless where I go, I’ll always take myself with me. At the time, I laughed at her wisdom for nonsense and thought to myself that she was wrong. Looking back now, I’m annoyed by my hubris back then.


I really thought that when I left there, just ran away from everything, I would also leave the old me there. With time, her wisdom came to pass, and it depressed me so, more than I was already.
Always seeing other places on television, I’d fooled myself into thinking that it could be so. I knew that it was all fantasy. I’ve used the television as my constant source of escape, got caught up in the lies it broadcasted.


So I ran away from home looking for home. There was a place I dreamt about, a place where I could begin again, and be accepted, loved, and wanted. I hated where I came from. Never felt like I belonged there. The people there never liked me, at school I didn’t fit in, and the foster family that took me in never cared much about me enough to stop hitting me.
Seeing families in other places on tv made me long to be part of what they had. A loving, caring, nurturing family.


I did things so differently to the others, from the way I dressed to the music I listened to. I had a different way of seeing things, and I was affected in a much different way than others did. Besides the television, I would get lost in music and the words that were sung by the artists. Their words took me to another place, a place where I was understood, and I sang the lyrics to their tunes with such passion.
It’s not easy looking for home. Always having to deny the truth, tell lies, and avoid questions. Everyone is so obsessed as to where you come from.
They think it's all so cool, exotic, and “THE” place to be. Bloody idiots…


Getting a job is the hardest, having to provide background information, as to birthplace is a nerve-racking task indeed. After telling the lie as to where you come from to fellow co-workers, and then having the manager see the filled out work application hoping they would keep secret the very information you want no one knowing.
Fearing they make you out as a liar, never taking the time to understand why you hide, why the lies, why you consider somewhere else home.


But what happens when I never find that place to call home? Do I keep on looking in a never-ending quest to be at peace, and forget all the demons in my past?
How do I come to a point, when assimilating the life I want so much without it being threatened? Having to hold everything together, and being careful, never letting my guard down as to let nothing escape the control I’ve worked hard all these years to maintain?


The past can be a bitch, and blasts from it are even more so worse the evil it spawns.
Being in contact with someone I consider a part of my past life, a person who calls my past life home, and is proud of it. One that I can’t fully trust to keep their trap shut, but I've held somewhat prisoner to their contact, as to not have them destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for.
They claim to care, and on some level, I believe that, but still know that they will never fully understand, why I needed to look for somewhere else to call home. Why I ran away leaving everything behind, blocking out memories and tried hard purging my entire being of my old life.


Would they really fully understand? Do I trust them enough to let them understand? Fear grips me in ways imaginable. Lying awake at night, and rethinking everything over, coming up with strategies on how to carry on, and planning what to do in the future, always being two steps ahead, and covering my arse. Truth and lies being so blurred, that not even I the spinner of such tales are able to tell them apart.
When does it end? When would I have the chance to put an end to the daily battles in my head?


Over the years so much has been lost, and so little gained all in my search for home. What I would give to be like them, to be part of where they call home, and not have to worry. Lucky bastards… I wish to be part of their home, but what if I had been born in the place they call home, and still ended up in the situation where I am today just somewhere else trying to escape here?


Is there really anywhere good enough to be my home? Perhaps I should stop running, make here home. Assimilate myself into the person I want to be, replace all the mental traumas, with lies, lies that are shatterproof, that show, that I too have a place to be.


Even today I still get caught up in the wonderland that is the television, all in my bid to find home. Most time it’s pointless to think this way, but I’ve realized over time that home isn't actually a place, but a part of me, and I carry it with me all the time. I just have to learn to trust in it regardless the demons that may haunt my head, and one day stop searching.