I have missed home tremendously. A plane ride home is only 15 hours away so they say. That’s not the point. I miss home even when we spend two months every summer to visit and pretend we live here just like old times. Well we have not visited since the summer Covid-19 happened. The lockdown seemed endless and traveling with restrictions was a risky mess. When you have a family of five and flight tickets were exorbitantly costly you either risk losing your money or having to spend more when you are trapped due to a fail PCR test. 2021 was our chance to travel again – this time back home. I have waited for this day a long time though I wasn’t expecting it. It was a laborious difficult move. As much as I wanted it I wasn’t prepared. November 2011 was fresh on my mind. It was the day I reluctantly dragged my feet and uprooted myself and my three young children. I left our future in his hands. I trusted him and most of all, I wanted to support his career and ambitions. It was hard to leave the city, our community, the life and routine I knew, our friends – I had grown distant from them. They sensed it too. Similarly the same feeling crept in when we prepared weeks prior to taking the flight home, leaving behind the house and life, so-called home, for almost a decade. I put my heart and soul in that home regardless of how unwillingly it took me. I consoled myself, that this is what I’ve always looked forward to. I never moved on overseas even though it seemed I had and now I am moving backwards to the life and home I had yearned for. It was a strange period in our lives. I probably wanted it but the tables had turned around this time. He did not as much, though it was a stable future, one with opportunities and it felt the right thing to do. The timing wasn’t exactly perfect for the children, it was close enough for the phase change but I believe it happened for a reason. The life they had while living as expatriate children weren’t real. It is probably best that they experience the reality of challenges and transitions. After all, they were too young to understand the move ten years ago. Covid-19 did not make it easy for sure. Everything seemed slow in motion, the logistics, the emotions, the movement, the experience, the resentment. I had to acknowledge them. I am sure they too.