This is the second part of a four-part series titled “Searching For Home” and explores what home means to me and others. If you haven’t read the first part. You can read or listen to it here.
As the plane was approaching the Phoenix airport and the flight attendants had to take their seats and buckle up, I continued to focus on my breathing. My nausea had been subsiding a bit, but the tingling was still there, and I still couldn’t feel my legs. It finally dawned on me that I had been hyperventilating because of a severe anxiety or panic attack. I had never before experienced anything this intense and I continued to be concerned about my legs. I could tell that we were getting very close to the ground. It felt a bit bumpy as the plane touched down, and the pilot quickly decelerated the plane. As the plane made its way to the gate, the British flight attendant who had put the plastic bag over my face gave me the instructions to stay put and let all the passengers get off the plane first. I gave her a subtle smile and nodded while thinking:
“Well, I don’t have a choice; my legs are still numb.”
All around me, I could hear the clicking noises as passengers unbuckled their seat belts and got up to collect their bags from the overhead compartments. Embarrassment started to creep in. This was certainly not the way I had imagined my arrival. Some people gave me a sympathetic look or an encouraging smile; some people just stared at me while waiting to get off the plane. I tried my best not to care, but I felt uncomfortable, to say the least.
Every passenger around me moved towards the exit doors and left the plane, one after another, and there I was still, sitting and waiting. Several flight attendants came towards me and asked me how I was feeling.
“I still can’t move my legs,” I responded.
They assured me that this would pass soon and that they had ordered a wheelchair for me and that someone would come to help me get off the plane. “Great”, I thought to myself, “this is getting even more embarrassing.” Meanwhile, the flight attendants tried to engage me in conversation and distract me from my anxiety.
“Where are you from? What are you going to do in Arizona?”
I explained that I was moving to America from Germany and getting married soon to an American whose family lives here in Phoenix and were waiting for my arrival.
Their eyes widened.
“No wonder you are feeling this way. Wow, that’s a big deal. Why do you want to live in America? Come back with us and live in England. Life in London is so much better.”
“Are you sure this is what you want? You totally should come back with us.”
All this made me laugh out loud, and the laughing made me feel a little better. I confirmed that I was quite certain. As they continued to joke around with me that I would be better off returning to Europe, another person came towards me and said that the wheelchair was ready for me at the exit. The flight attendants made sure that I had all my belongings, said goodbye, and wished me well for the future in my new home.
What is home?
That’s the question I have been wondering about on and off for many years. I certainly underestimated what it meant to leave my home country and move thousands of miles away to a place that is not my home. Adjusting to a completely new life was very hard. I felt like a child having to learn how to walk, stumbling often. It’s almost appropriate that I arrived in this country with paralyzed legs and had to be wheeled off the plane.
Immigrating to a new country takes months of preparation in advance. And then it takes many more months after you arrive, many more months of additional paperwork, more medical appointments, and several more interviews during which I often felt like I was committing a crime by trying to live here legally. As a white woman from a first world country who was already fluent in English, I realize how privileged my process was compared to many, many other people I encountered, but even I felt humiliated at times and was not always treated with kindness.
Now that I have lived in the United States for a long time with my American husband, raising two American children, have made many American friends, and feel quite comfortable and familiar with the way of life here, I still struggle with the notion of home. I often don’t feel at home, but I am not always sure what exactly I mean by that.
After we got married, we lived in Indiana for several years while my husband attended graduate school. We always knew it was temporary and that it would never be our home. My kids were both born there, but they were small when we left. Now that we have lived in Minnesota for about a decade, I can say that I like my life here and I have enjoyed living here overall. My kids are at home here and yet, there are times when I still feel like I don’t belong or I don’t feel quite at home.
Is home a country, region, or city? Is home a house or a particular place? Is home a person or a community of people? Is home a lifestyle? Is it familiarity with a place? Is it the place where you were born or grew up? Is home a feeling or condition that you can create wherever you are?
Growing up in Germany, I never considered one particular house or city my home. We moved when I was six and we moved again when I was twelve to a city where I spent my teenage years. I never loved that city. I never felt at home and honestly couldn’t wait to move away.
After leaving Germany and starting my new life here in the States, I have often felt homesick, but not for a city or a house. I think I felt homesick for what was familiar to me. I missed the lifestyle I had left behind more than I missed a particular place. I was homesick for Europe and missed aspects of my life there, but if I could have chosen, would I have moved back? I don’t think I would have. Not then, at least.
“Home is where your heart is,” people say. Maybe that is true. Maybe home can be wherever you are and wherever life takes you. Maybe home can be much more than a place. Maybe home has to do with memories, safety, comfort and love. Maybe home is where I feel most at ease and most myself.
I will continue to explore all this and more in the third and fourth installment of this series “Searching For Home” to be published in two and four weeks respectively. I will write about one place in particular that I got to visit last year with my family where the feelings of being at home were stronger than I had experienced in years.
I am curious. Where do you feel at home? What does home mean to you?
Ah. I was just writing or feeeling about home on my Liveblog3000 on Loaded Pen early this morning. Must be in the air.
Or at least in the airgorhythm.
Enjoying this so much! I have never felt "at home". When in Colombia with my mother's family where I spent every summer of my life until college, I would experience reverse culture shock upon my return. I've never felt at home here in the States either. After my mother died, I thought I would never feel at home anywhere, but time passed and my grief of losing her and my brother ironically brought back a sense of footing within myself. I had to. I didn't have a choice. Sometimes I wonder if "home is where the heart is" actually is true." Thank you for sharing this.