I have been back in Australia for exactly 2 weeks now. The first week was a whirlwind of “Welcome Homes” and catch up cuppas and chats with family and friends. Jet-lag was just a vague concept as I was obviously still flying high. This person that was the ‘travelling me’ had returned and was babbling her stories to whoever stood still long enough! Then one day I woke up with a sore throat and a runny nose and suddenly felt very, very, tired. I had landed… I rolled over and went back to sleep.

When you’ve been away, people always ask you if you are glad to be home. That’s a really hard question to answer…. Of course I’ve said yes because the ‘travelling me’ who slept on a whole array of less than comfortable beds is very glad to be sleeping in her own bed again! Of course I’ve said yes because the ‘mummy me’ is very happy to be receiving hugs from her two amazing children and delighted to be kissing their cheeks again! Of course I’ve said yes because it’s expected that I would be happy to be home…wouldn’t I?

Truth is, that even though I have come back to my country of birth, the town I’ve lived in for the last 8 years and the house where all my stuff is, I don’t really feel “at home” at all. Well not in the usual sense of this phrase… For the past (nearly) 4 months I have been in all sorts of different places where I could say I felt “at home.” I’ve stood in Neolithic Stone Circles and felt “at home”. I’ve stood on the edge of rugged cliffs overlooking giant seas and felt “at home.” I’ve sat in cafes in busy city streets and felt “at home.” I’ve walked alone on deserted beaches and felt “at home.”

So what IS this feeling of being home? I’m glad to say that I have experienced a sense of “home” many times whilst I was overseas, as a sense, not of place, but of self. When I have felt a stillness and a silence inside me and yet was totally aware of every sound and movement around me, that was the feeling of home. Home is not always a physical place. Home is a knowing. It’s a knowing of and a feeling of love… not of someone or by someone but of the self for the self.

I thought I had brought this feeling home with me. I thought this feeling had cemented itself within me. I thought I knew now how to feel “at home” anywhere… and then I started to feel a bit wobbly, here, in THIS home. This house that I am in, doesn’t feel like a home anymore. On a superficial level it still does. There is a certain level of comfort to be had to be surrounded by my things, to be cooking in my kitchen, to be hanging my clothes on the line, to sit in my backyard and listen to the birds, to be lying under my doona… but everything has changed… Without my constant energy in this house, other energies have come and settled in the corners. Stagnant energies, sticky, fearful energies. All the colours have faded and there are empty spaces even though the house feels cluttered with things…

There is a sense of decay that doesn’t seem fair or right and is somehow unexpected and yet is totally appropriate…

I used to tell my children, every time we had to move house, that a house is just a house. Home is where you feel loved, home is the love of your family. And your family will always love you, no matter where you go. Now I understand that whilst the love of family can be an important constant that makes you feel safe, loved and “at home”, it is the love of self that is much more crucial to any sense of peace and equilibrium.

How bizarre that it was easier to summon this feeling of self-love in unfamiliar places and yet for it to wobble here amongst the familiar! I guess it was to be expected though, when for so long any sense of feeling loved had always hinged on feeling loved by another, of thinking I was the half of another, of being one of two…

Rest assured I won’t give in to this wobbling though. I am stronger than that now. I grew a lot of courage during my time overseas and I don’t feel any fear of the unknown anymore.

It is time for a new journey to begin. The ‘travelling me’ with all her recent experience is going to come in handy on this next adventure but ultimately it will be the ‘at home’ me that will help lead us along the rocky road ahead…