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Going back home

I'm flying home next weekend. Home. What does that mean, anyway? If home is where you work, then my home is intangible because I work online. If home is where you study, then my home is Kiel, Germany. If home is where your friends are, then my home is the world, because my friends are spread all over the place. If home is where your heart is, currently my home is Sopó, because Honey is there. If home is where your family is, then my home is Barranquilla.

I am flying to that home. I am flying to Barranquilla. And I have mixed feelings about that. I am delighted to go home, but I don't want to stay. I am excited to go home, but I don't want to go. I am afraid to go back home, but I can't stay here alone. Home. Such a complicated concept...

Going back this time will be weird. It will be a first-time-ever kind of experience because, for the first time ever I will stay in a hotel and not in my parents' home. Not in my bed. Not in my room, which is now the guest room. It will be weird to have room service not delivered by Carmen. It will be awkward to greet the bellboy and not Fadul or Víctor or Pompy. It will be sad to be greeted as Miss Delgado and not as Naty.

However, also for the first time I will be married when I arrive in Barranquilla - so technically I won't even be Miss Delgado. I will be Mrs. Hergett. I will be a wife, a married woman, a half of a whole. I have never experienced Barranquilla like that. I won't be my father's daughter, I will be my husband's wife.

Ah, how I love/hate this identity crisis.

I'm flying home next weekend. Barranquilla will always be my home. Just like Augusta continues to be my home. Just like Kiel has become my home. It should be nice, though, always feeling at home. I will go home to Barranquilla and then I will return home to Kiel. I kinda like the ring of that...

Comments

  1. Oooh! If I read this right, that means you already got married! Booooya! Congrats there Naty!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I already am a married woman. It feels particularly uneventful, yet extremely fulfilling. Hm.

      Delete

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