See, the whole "back home" thing is embedded in an expat's vocabulary, and I'm sure some expats really do think of the place they came from as "home", possibly with the desire to go back there some day.
Try as I might, I've been trying to reprogram my internal monologue to say "Canada" or "Alberta", but it's not entirely easy, and I catch myself slipping up pretty much all the time.
The reason I try so hard to avoid saying "back home" (even in my head), is that I don't really feel like Sleepy Suburb is my home anymore. It was a place, to mostly everyone's chagrin, that I would loudly talk about leaving one day, never to return. I never really liked living there in the first place, never really fitting in. Still, Sleepy Suburb is where I grew up, and there's still a pull inside me that says "This is where you're from". That being said, it's not my home, and I don't like to think of it as such. It's not where I long to go back to, and I don't get any sort of belonging feeling from being there or thinking about being there.
Aside from the presence of Tim Horton's, my family and bestie, going back to Canada on vacation also isn't "going home" per se. I'd be just as happy if those things were in the States, Mexico or China.
What I'm trying to say is that the place holds no meaning for me anymore. (Emphasis on anymore... I'll get to that sometime.)
That being said, I still don't feel "at home" where I live right now. Sure, I live here, but it's not my home, coming with all the warm feelings generated by that word.
It creates awkward conversations when Krauts ask me where I'm from, and act totally surprised when they find out I'm not dying to go back, and I don't really have any plans to go home. Ever. And then to try to explain to these Heimat-lovers that I doubt if I even have a Heimat? Does. Not. Compute.
Anyhoo, I started this blog in an attempt to come to terms with what it means to be an expatriate, and to hopefully share that information with people either from "back home" (see, there it is again!) or those who are experiencing something similar. Now, I mostly write about the weather and jerk Krauts, which I suppose is part of the whole expat-experience on a daily grind sort of level. With this mini-series, I'm going to try to look at the big picture and figure out for myself -- with all of you watching me do it -- why I feel homeless in the first place.
Some things I hope to consider in the coming weeks include:
- How much control do I have over choosing a home, and how much does a home choose me?
- How have some of the places I've lived and called home affected my notion of Heimat?
- How does my hybridity (à la Homi Bhabha) and fact I moved abroad in my early twenties affect me in my search for Heimat?
- Can I have a Heimat? And even more importantly, do I want one?
If you're normally stopping by to read my stories about jerk Krauts and not mind-numbingly dull soul searching, have no fear. There will be plenty of that woven through. I could never give that up!
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