{Scraps of Life}
Through my 35 years in this life, I have quite a few moves under my belt. Some long-distance, some closer to each other.
People ask me all the time “where are you from ?” and I must make a strange face each and every time because I just don’t know how to answer this question. I also have to force myself not to think “this person is probably another racist jerk” but this is another story… See, I am from France, to begin with: that’s where I was born and raised. But where is my hometown? I have none. I was born in Paris’ suburbs where I lived until I was about 8 years old; then things got… hectic. We lived at my Mom’s friend’s house with her family for about 6 months then moved closer to my grandparents in Brittany. I remember I HATED it; did not like being the only person of colour for once. However, I was so close to the water that salt sank deep underneath my skin to fuel my veins. In hindsight, the three years we lived in Brittany were both the best and the worst of my life.
Oh Canada…
I have never been able to answer that “where’s home for you?” until we moved to Québec. None of us really felt good in Québec. We decided to try for all the bad reasons but I have no regret though. We all grew, we found ourselves and finally discovered that home was simply in British Columbia… so we sold our suburban house and bought one without being able to visit it. Crazy? Probably. But when you know, you know. We came back to the same city but in another neighbourhood. I love it here, nature surrounds us without it being too countryside-in-the-middle-of-nowhere. I was able to get the girls accepted into a wonderful school where they already had friends. My husband now works 100% from home which is great. It was the right decision to move back here.
Now… I wish I would gather friends around me. Even though my social anxiety tends to take over meeting new people, I want to do my best to change this.
Home is simply where I decide to plant my roots.
My husband and I fell in love with Vancouver, BC (Canada) in the summer of 2006. It was an absolute truth for us: home. That deep sense of belonging. I remember being in the downtown area during the Aboriginal celebrations and listening to their traditional drums, tears falling down my face for no apparent reason. These beats were resonating deep in my bones. This is something I experienced only this one time and I believe I will never forget this.
When we made that decision to leave France, it was both easy and difficult. Easy because it was obvious to us that our lives would not be completely fulfilled where we were. Difficult because we moved without a work waiting or a permanent home address, with two toddlers, and leaving our families behind.
When I was a teenager, I had to do some research about an English-speaking country for an oral presentation and my team and I picked Canada. This is, I believe when it started for me. It was the beginning of it all for me. And this became an obsession… When I was in high school, my class was supposed to come for two weeks to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for an exchange with students. However, it did not happen because fear took over after the 9/11 events. I was planning to move to Canada after graduating high school and become an au-pair for a while.
I am curious…
What is home to you? is that a physical place? Something else?
This is kind of fascinating to me, to be honest.