Where is Home?

A question so seemingly simple, yet is one of the most complicated questions anyone has ever asked me.

“Where is home?”

Straightforwards, yeah? Not really. I’ve struggled to answer this question throughout my life because of all the cultures in me and all the countries my family lives/has lived in. Because of this, I don’t feel a true strong connection to one place or country.

I’m Palestinian. All four of my grandparents were born in Palestine but were forced to leave. They kept moving, and moving, and moving to countries like Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Germany, and even the U.S. Eventually, my dad’s parents ended up between the U.K and the U.A.E and my mom’s parents in the U.A.E. My dad grew up in London, and my mom in Dubai. I, on the other hand, was born in London, raised in Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and London. Oh yeah, I have a U.K and Jordanian passport too.

So, where is home?

In my opinion, home is where you should feel a strong connection to, a city your life is intertwined with. It’s a place where you have friends, possibly family, and have built a community that you surround yourself with. Home is the place you long to return to when you leave- it makes you homesick and eager to come back.

I don’t feel that feeling about any particular place. I’ve lived in Saudi the longest, but still don’t feel connected to it- I continue to feel like an outsider or foreigner. Dubai has been the city where almost all of my immediate family lives in, but I don’t have many friends and feel disconnected from people there. London is where I was born, where I’ve spent every summer, and I’m a proud citizen of, but once again I feel disconnected from.

So, where is home?

I still don’t know. Home has become a feeling more than a place for me. It’s a wholesome, all-round, good ass feeling I’ve felt on a number of different occasions. As I’ve grown older, I’ve tried to revisit this question, talk to my parents it, and talk to other friends in similar situations, but still haven’t found any clarity. Maybe it’s from a point of privilege? Having the ability to potentially call multiple places ‘home’ and having different connections to different places.

The current political landscape in the Middle East doesn’t help either. I don’t want to get into politics, but the impact of political decisions is evident on younger generations. We are born and raised in countries other than our homelands, we speak English and possibly struggle with our mother tongue, and have probably never visited our homelands. It’s not our fault, but we are put in these situations that deeply impacts our sense of self and identity. As much as we try and as shameful as it is to admit, we do not have the deep connection rooted in our homeland as we’d like. We lack the physical connection, the memories, and the relationships that people think of when they talk about their homeland. And sadly, I don’t have that when I think of Palestine and try to live through the memories and stories from my grandparents in an attempt to feel some sort of a connection.

So maybe my struggle to find a ‘home’ isn’t because of the different places I’ve lived in, but is because a much larger issue? I’m not sure if I’ll ever call a place home but I hope to find clarity one day.

Lots of love,
~N