What is home to you?
Is it a place? Is it in material things? Relationships with yourself and/or others?
Moving back to the States was a venture our family wanted to take to find our “home”.
Being with my family feels like home to me. So does the sunshine and my culture. It’s something I’ve been missing deeply for the last 9 years and I thought getting there would complete me. It was always in our plans to move, and now felt like a pretty good time.
So, we went all in. Frej quit his job and studied full-time for the tests he needed to take in order to work in the US. He passed, got a few interviews in which he knocked out of the park. We got such great feedback and what we thought was an absolute YES. So, we got ready to move. We sold all our belongings, packed our bags, turned in our apartment and were ready to go with our 3-year-old and newborn in hand.
Then, just a few weeks before our one-way flight to Miami, we got an email that stopped us in our tracks.
A no.
No job opportunity.
Then another email, with another no.
My husband’s travel visa was denied.
Our hearts sank.
This plan we had worked towards for over a year and sacrificed immensely for was over.
Grief came over me and after going through all the phases and processing this loss, I realized what home really means to me.
Getting rid of all our belongings was difficult for me, even though I’ve always strived towards minimalism. There were items that made me feel at home in a sense. Objects with memories. The furniture that filled our apartment when my son was born, the table I found for a steal when my husband and I first got married, and all the meals we had on it as a family.
Home is not in a physical place or in material things. I lost my attachment to those things quite quickly.
What made my home was the people in it.
My husband, my son, my daughter, and me. And our family who would visit often.
The memories we made in it together, the laughs and the love that we shared, the difficult moments we got through in there together.
They say that grief is just love with nowhere to go, but I see love all around me.
Home is not a place for me. Home is where my heart is. Where my love is. And I feel abundant in my sense of home because love surrounds me always.
I’ll always have a home in Sweden because my love is here, and I’ll always have a home in Miami because my love is there. That’s something I will never lose.
When I released my attachment to physical things, circumstances, and outcomes, I saw what the most important things in my life are.
And I’m so indescribably grateful because I have them all.
No world is perfect. I wish I could have both families together always but even though we are an ocean apart, I am complete and so thankful. Because I have them, and we love each other deeply. We are always present. Both here and there; and that is what home is to me. Home is what lies within me and all around me, no matter where I am. Home is truly where the heart is. Because home is where love is.
