I am 25-year-old and lived in seven countries thus far, moved five times within the last four years and will certainly live for more than 5 months in two different countries this year. With all these impressions and souvenirs, which I carry around in my bag or in my mind there is one thing, which is left along the way: the feeling of being home. There are millions of songs covering this one unique feeling of having a home (and I am not only speaking about ‘Driving home for Christmas’). However, I do start having a little problem with this feeling. Where is my home actually?
My tattoo of the Berlin skyline is probably the only thing, which constantly reminds me of my home. Internally, however, I feel like a nomad searching for the one and only place to be. Weird, or normal?
Especially the last two days have been some extreme ones. After having lived in Southeast Asia for almost 7 months I was thrown back into cold and grey Germany and could only think about one thing: I certainly do not belong here. This thought lasted for approximately 2 days, right until university started again and I was back in the daily routine. Within seconds I mutated back to this German girl, organised and stressed of daily life, far away from the one living in Asia wearing flip flips and boardshorts.
Hence, it is clear that although we probably all promise ourselves to keep some of our holiday serenity, we quickly jump back into the daily horror. However, something stays after each travel: the nonstop feeling of going away again. Or is it another call for home?
Many of my friends ask me whether I dislike Berlin or whether I will ever come back to Germany. My answer? No, never. But right now I am sitting in a car to Denmark, leaving Berlin behind me and rather think: Well, why not? Millions of tourists travel to this city year by year and every time I visit Berlin that magical place touches me again. So how does this all fit together?
With all that travelling I have done and far more with the time I did not spend in Berlin, the wish to go back to Berlin grew. Every time I am back in Berlin I feel like I have to visit all my friends and see all things I want to see. And then, there it is again: "Tschö Berlin" (Bye Berlin!). Weird. At the same time I am sitting in the car thinking about going back to Denmark, ready for new adventures and new travels. This is how I satisfy my wish to go away again, but this will never lead to any sense of home sickness. What is wrong with me?!
I do not know exactly what it is.
Am I homeless just because I travel too much or because I keep moving from place to place? Or is this little happiness of coming home and visiting all friends a feeling of being home? I think I am and will certainly remain a German girl (at least internally), but from the outside I will always be that little nomad soaking in impressions like a vacuum machine and letting them out in form of a blog.
The home, for me, thus, is Berlin since I know every corner in that city (at least most of them), but the real place, my own home, is still somewhere out there. Maybe it is currently Aarhus, since this is where my bed is, but I cannot tell exactly. What is home and what is heimat?
And from which exact point of time can we say: this is home?
