Home

I know I haven't been a very faithful writer here but I just only write when I feel inspiration, when I really feel something, or when maybe I learned something.
Usually I for sure feel this way when I end a phase I've been in for a while, when something new is about to happen. Busrides, trainrides or flights for me are an example of these moments where my mind and inspiration gets triggered. Usually on these trips from A to B in a bus, train or plane, I was ending one chapter and starting a new one.
Then I think, reflect, and write. This is what I wrote during my last busride.

So I was sitting in a local bus from the Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, to Kuala Lumpur. A mountainous, windy, quite crazy busride, one of those where sometimes you fear a bit for your life. But also a beautiful one, with stunning views driving through different landscapes and tiny local villages.

That day, 2 june 2015, I was on my way back to Kuala Lumpur because that night I would catch my flight back to the Netherlands afer almost two years. I had left Australia afther having been there 364 days and 23,5 hours. I almost could'nt have stayed there longer on my first Working Holiday Visa, which you get for exactly one year. It's been an inspiring journey for me that past year, and the year before that, as some of you who have followed me all that time might know.

So I'm going 'home', after a long time.
Home is always been a quite difficult word for me to catch, maybe that feeling became even stronger after these years of traveling. When someone asks me, 'where are you from?' I never really know what to answer. My parents are Dutch. But I was born in a small countryside town in Italy, close to Bologna. I spent my first 11 years of my life there, which is quite a base to start with. Then we moved back to Holland, my roots?, when I was 11. Untill I was 25 I have lived there, so the biggest part of my life so far. But then I started traveling, left my safe place of comfort, job, home and friends behind.

So when someone asks me where I'm from, I just don't really know what to say. My blood is Dutch, but in my heart I also feel Italian, even though I don't look like one, without a doubt. The biggest part of my life I spent in the Netherlands, but I dont feel that much Dutch. I feel a citizen of the world. Maybe because I grew up like this. Different places, different cultures, different people, different way of liiving.
Dont get me wrong. I am very, very happy about all this. I feel so blessed that I grew up this way because I think it made me an openminded person and I feel I had quite some meaningful experiences on an early stage of my life. I am deeply thankful towars my parents that they made that I experienced this and grew up like this, and I would wish and will do my best for my own children to live something like this, one day.

It's such a cliche isnt'it, saying I'm a citizen of the world. But so true for me.

Another cliche I'm going to put you up with. 'Home is where the heart is'. It just popped up in my head during this busride. And as much as I kind of hate these cliche's, this one kept on jumping through my mind that ride. And I was happy to notice that I could give this thought a different spin, that I would like to share with you. I hope it can inspire some of you readers. Because after thinking about it, I do believe its true. And maybe for a bit of a different reason. I would like to share, to advice....

To find your heart first. Truly and deeply within yourself.
Connect with it. Once you've done so, once you find it, you know. And you know how to connect with it. Over and over, building this connection stronger and stronger. So that each day, each moment, each thought, each feeling comes purely from your heart.
Then you are home. And home, then, can be anywhere.
No need for others, or for certain circumstances, to make you feel this, because you are home within yourself.

Then you can start spreading this heart, anywhere you go, with who ever you connect.
Regardless if you live in one place or if you have a gipsy soul. Thats not what this is about.
It's about knowing your deepest self. About being at peace with yourself. About a connection with your own heart and soul.
Where ever you are, whatever you do or happens, with who ever you are and connect. Find home in yourself, first. A place of peace and love where you can always come back to.

Sure, that's easier said then done, and it's not always easy to feel at peace with yourself or what happens. This might take a lifetime, or a few if you believe so ;) but what I have experienced for myself so far of this, for me it's a goal that's very well worth going for.

What do you love doing? What beats your heart faster for? What gives you energy, makes you happy, makes you feel alive? Start doing more of this.
Start awareness in yourself. Start with your toes, if you'd like, start with the littlelest things. Start noticing physical things, thoughts, emotions, feelings, start noticing that you have a voice inside you.
It's not a mind thing. Definitely not. Trying to find and understand this, to connect with your heart through your mind will result in nothing but thinking about it but getting nowhere near it, and so result in frustration.

Close your eyes and feel what's going on. Start with noticing physical things. Pain in your back? Headache? A happy, loving feeling in your chest? An excitement in your belly? Just close your eyes and feel, notice. Don't try to change it. Just feel and let it be. Anything that's going on.

You'll notice then, that your awareness spreads from physical things, to thoughts, emotions, and beyond. You will notice that once you start to trust this 'inner voice', it will become stronger and more obvious. It will speak up louder everytime. And you won't find reasons not to trust it anymore, because it's right and it will always prove this to you.
You'll start to feel which feelings are true and which ones are based on fears, which are most of the time illusions. You'll develop a sense for it. It's this well known 'gut feeling' we all know from some situations in our lives. But if you start to be aware you'll notice it's always there actually, and it's there to guide you. It will bring you home.

My home now feels like its in many places, having left pieces of my heart in many places and in many beautiful people I met along this journey and this lifetime until now, my own heart enriched by many places and people met along the way.

Home form me is not only in the Netherlands. Or in Italy. Or in Byron Bay. My gypsy soul might be cause of that too. But home is in my heart now, finally, and my heart - as any other if you let it - connects.
With people, with places, with cultures, with experiences. I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to build a feeling of home inside myself and so in many places and people, and that so many places and people did the same for and with me.

I'm back now in one of these beautiful, important places for me.
It's time to reconnect, to strenghten, rebuild these connections. Time to pause, reflect, to come back home, within me, in a place and with people that feel like home.

And then, one day I'll probably have one place to particularly call home, too. But untill then, how lucky I am to have so many... :)