It's Okay
There’s something that writing these posts have taught me. I came up with the idea for writing a blog about homesickness two months ago and I have changed since then. Not to say that I don’t miss my family, because I do. I miss them every day. But writing about it has taught me this, something my mother said to me once, but something I didn’t quite understand yet:
The past is a nice place to visit every once in a while, but you can’t live there.
I understand that now, in every sense. As a person, you move forward in life, changing and shifting with every day and every event. The present becomes the past and the future becomes the present. You lose people and you find new ones; relationships prosper or they simply cease to exist.
And that’s okay. It’s okay if you aren’t still close with everyone you were with in high school. It’s okay if the person you have romantic feelings for doesn’t feel the same way. It’s okay if you only talk to your parents once a month, once a week, or once a day. It’s okay.
Because home isn’t a place. I thought that maybe it was, that my home could be contained within four walls and some bricks, varying shades of paint and a patched-over hole in the kitchen ceiling. But it’s not. Home is who you’re with, not where you are.
I feel just as much at home here in Ottawa as I do back in Mississauga. Yes, there are things that I miss dearly about Mississauga (looking at you, Burrito Boyz). But there are so many things that I will miss about Ottawa if/when I leave.
That’s another thing. Honestly, I don’t know where I’m going after graduation. I don’t know if I’m going to stay here, go home, or pick up and head across the ocean. I seriously have no idea. Two years ago, that would have terrified me to no end. I would have been an anxious, shaking wreck seven days a week.
But I’m not the same person I was two years ago. I have changed since then.
It’s funny, isn’t it? How your perception can change so quickly?
I know this for certain: I will always go home. I will always return to my family, no matter where in the world they are. I will cross oceans and skies and mountains for them
The present will become the past, and the future will become the present, but I will still have a home, and I will still carry on, no matter where I am.
Photo Credit: Kayla Randall
KAYLA RANDALL
Kayla Randall is a 20-year-old aspiring novelist with a passion for coffee, books, and driving around her hometown. Eldest of five siblings, she often misses home in Mississauga, but is still having the time of her life living in Ottawa and trying to make her mark in the literary world.