Wherever you go, there you are

Maybe it was the lights. The fluorescent pinpoints spotting over my vision, threatening to consume my focus entirely. “Bright lights, big city” is one thing, but certainly no one had warned me about the sovereignty of these synthetic galaxies.
How did I end up here? 100 feet in the air with only a cold metal bar separating me from the city of Montreal, I looked down at my home for the next four years. Mont Royal will always dog-ear an important page in my life story as the location where I waved goodbye to comfort, cash flow and childhood, and timorously welcomed independence. Surrounded by uniform introductions and vacant visages from fellow freshmen, I wondered if freedom would ever taste as saccharine as it looked in the brochures, or if family could ever be found in these unfamiliar faces.
Only a day earlier I had trekked for ceaseless hours, clammy and anxious in an overstocked IKEA warehouse on wheels. I held my breath as the GPS informed me that my destination was ahead: McGill University. My parents by my side I received a key that wasn’t to my front door, bought books that wouldn’t end up on my kitchen counter and smiled for a student ID card that I wouldn’t lose between the cracks of my living room couch. The empty warehouse was now parked 632.8 km away from where I stood. An endless street home, I bypassed the easy road.
Soiling my sneakers as I took the path less travelled both up the mountain and towards my future, I reached the top with pride but certainly not grace. Reaching the summit, I never once regretted my travels.
Looking out at the lights as the breeze splashed goose bumps upon my flesh I realized that maybe home doesn’t have to be where your family lives. Perhaps it’s not where you grew up or where your mind wanders when someone asks you where you’re from. Maybe you can cry in your home, feel shame in your home or even want to go home while you are home. I gazed out at the specks and the splatters of buildings and listened to the symphony of sounds conducted by nightfall. The city wasn’t the only one who wouldn’t sleep that night. That’s when I realized.
Maybe home is where you can kiss yourself goodnight and still wake up in the morning. Maybe home is where your sweet tooth overwhelms your satisfaction with bitterness.
Or maybe home is just where you’ll be proud of yourself for keeping your feet on the ground, even if your shoes get dirty along the way.
I found home in Montreal, and I never want to stop finding my way home.