From Home to Home

This weekend is the first time I’m doing something: going from my New Home to my Old Home.

It’s the first time I’ve found somewhere captivating enough to set up camp. I spent six months in the Czech Republic, loved it, but it wasn’t a forever home. Another two months spent in Spain and then it was time to move on. Guatemala’s different, and while there are things I find challenging about living here, it’s home.

However, the more I set up roots here: settle into my apartment, become more smitten with my wonderful Guatemalan boyfriend, get a lovely little Husky puppy called Inca and so on, the more I realise New Zealand will never not be home.

While I could probably go a few more years without seeing my country, as beautiful as it is, it’s the family I have there – those from blood, and those who have  knitted themselves deeply into my life – that will always make it home.

Sometimes it’s hard to split your heart between two places, almost as far as they can be from each other. I do miss out on a lot, seeing my cousin’s daughter grow up, being there to comfort friends through the small things, going to the movies with my sisters, eating fish and chips… the list goes on. But more than what I miss out on, there’s something special to gain between having two homes. Two places filled to the brim with people you love.

And for the first time ever, this weekend will have me with one foot firmly in each.
I’ll have three weeks to spend in New Zealand, trying to fill my moments up with those friends who continue to sparkle in my life, irrespective of the miles between us. I get to go home for three weeks, and afterwards, I get to come home too.

Who knew some 3.5 years ago when I set up this blog, that I’d wind up living in Guatemala, working online, learning Spanish and salsa, and chasing down cobblestone streets after a little husky?

I could have never imagined anything so wonderful, yet here it is.