No Home But Home

One day we reach our goal—and now we point with pride to the long journeys we took to reach it. In truth we did not notice we were travelling. But we got so far because at each point we believed we were at home. (Friedrich Nietzsche, Gay Science, Aphorism 253)

I am twenty-one years old, and I’ve already spent more than a quarter of my life away from my family in a foreign country. I was only fifteen when I thought I was old enough to begin living away from my family and move to the United States as a student.

The truth is, I wasn’t.

I was only welcome by seemingly unceasing culture shock. I didn’t really know how to accept differences. Yet, one thing was clear to me. I didn’t want to be different, I wanted to be a part of “them.” I didn’t want to be alone. At this point, my way of accepting differences has adopted a method of assimilation and identification. I have gradually become accustomed to the American way of things.

It was only a year after when I went back home to visit my family over the summer break. I was finally at home, somewhere I so secretly desired to go back but couldn’t because of my silly stubbornness for success. Everything at home seemed to be at where it should be…

But it wasn’t the same. Something was off. It was me that changed. My now U.S. accustomed perception wouldn’t let me be at home. My home was not the home I had in my mind anymore. I no longer belonged there. I have become homeless. Nonetheless, I didn’t deal with it in the way I should have. I convinced myself that I’ve become the better one, and it’s my home that needs to change. I started actively hating my home. This was the only way I could justify my unbelonging. In addition, by doing so, I thought I could be more of an American. I hoped that the U.S. would be my new home. I had to belong to somewhere.

A few years passed by, and it was the time for me to decide whether or not to study abroad in college. I debated. I felt that getting accustomed to a new place once more could be miserable and I didn’t want to go through this again. At the same time, it felt as if I somehow strangely knew that I might be too afraid to live abroad ever again in my life if I weren’t to go abroad in 2011. At last, I decided that I was too young not to play the game. As required by my major, I went on the Mac German program in Berlin and Vienna.

The first three days were just terrifying. I got to the airport in Berlin without any solid expectations. The taxi driver did not charge me fairly, but my terrible German speaking ability did not even allow me to express my unsatisfaction with his service. The Goethe Institute never did its job of providing me with the host family information. My language class was supposed to start the day after, and by no means was I ready for it. I regretted my decision repeatedly: “I knew this was going to happen… Why did I do this to myself again?”

I started going to classes and making friends, and things were getting better. I was having lots of fun. Even though I got sick numerous times throughout studying abroad, my friends were always helping me out. Gradually, the hate for my decision to go abroad for a whole semester was being overturned.

Only after two months, I had to leave for Vienna as required by the program. It was a bit sad moment. I was just about to understand, accept, and be a part of Berlin in my own way and also to start falling in love with that city. At this point, it seemed like this was what my life was all about: a cycle of belonging and unbelonging.

The train to Vienna was not a pleasurable experience. All participants of the program gathered at the Hauptbahnhof in Berlin. We had so many giant suitcases standing next to us. These suitcases represented our life. Travelers… We were bringing all the baggage—good and bad—of our life to Vienna, and the suitcases didn’t seem big enough for it.

I still had a good time in Vienna, drinking amazing Viennese coffee, beer, and wine, eating delicious food, watching plays (and studying—maybe). I also traveled to more than 20 different cities in Europe and Morocco. Something always kept me entertained.

However, maybe about a month before the program ended, I couldn’t enjoy being in Vienna at all anymore. I seemed to have been lying to myself to convince myself that Vienna was fun, that being on the study abroad program was what I wanted, and such… More than anything, I wanted to go back to where I belong. I missed all the things and people I tried to leave behind because I couldn’t take them with. Those I left behind because they would have taken up too much space in my head—I missed them, wanted to go back to them, and I needed to reclaim their spots in thoughts by kicking out the new European ones. I missed a sense of belonging.

It was a week before I was leaving Vienna. I was so happy and excited, counting down each day until I have to go to the airport to get out of this city. But before leaving the city, there were a few things I wanted to do. I wanted to grab some Austrian wine and Radler (Austrian version of summer shandy except that it is infinitely better) with my friends. I had to get some delicious cakes and Eiskaffe (coffee with ice cream which comes with a few different condiments) from one of my favorite cafes called Oberlaa. I also wanted to take another glance at all the beautiful buildings I just passed by everyday…

When would be my next chance of coming back here? I didn’t know the answer to the question. And all the sudden, everything became more beautiful. All these things have been always next to me! Right in front of my eyes! I just wanted to intentionally neglect them because I knew it would hurt me when it becomes the time for me to leave.

It was this moment when I realized that my desire for a sense of belonging wished for eternity and what I hated was transience. I was running away from reality to chase the non-existing dream world. Acknowledging that I don’t have a home, I finally sincerely felt at home. This home isn’t as comfortable as the home I had when I was seven years old, but I don’t have to lie to myself anymore. Everywhere became a possibility of my transient home. My life just moved on from an ordinary vanilla candy to a selection of colorful flavors.

I am a traveler. Yet I will be at home whenever I believe I am home. And it will be—or seem—forever so, if I believe in eternity. That’s the power of faith, the answer I discovered in the eternally transient beauty of Vienna.

Submitted anonymously, Class of 2012. Studied abroad on the Macalester German Studies Program