What is a home?

Change is never easy. D is pretty good at playing it cool, and never letting on that things bother him. 

But it transpired that his concept of "home" has been destroyed by our move away from Hardy Road. The act of moving out ALL our belongings and renting it out to someone else has nullified our home for him. He thinks we are on the hunt for a new home (which I guess we are). That we are "homeless" as it were. 

It's a difficult concept to explain what "home" is to an 8 year old. But then again, maybe he has got it right. It's that simple. 

Move out from house + Move into temporary accommodation = no more home/homeless.

I suppose my idea of home is different, simply because we lived in what I perceive as "temporary accommodation" till I was at university(ironic no?). From 0-9 years, I was living with my paternal grandma. Then from age 9-15 years we lived with my maternal grandma. From age 16-18 years we lived in our "forever home" but soon after I left for university and lived in London in a flat for 6 years. A place where I couldn't stay on for more than the duration of my studies. But that felt more like home than anywhere else that I had lived. (Maybe that is why I have always thought of London as my home ...) Nowhere else did. I was always on the move in that sense. Always something else to look forward to because where I was at at that time was never the permanent solution. 

So "home" to me became about the people, the experiences, the places I was at rather than the physical. I still don't collect things, I don't buy things to make a home (which in some ways I do feel sad about), I don't decorate (or decorate sparsely). I suppose I don't believe that I will be in my forever home. I am a nomad hear me roar?

Which is why leaving Hardy Road wasn't hard for me. Leaving London was. The Tate Modern, V&A, South Bank, skyline of London, South Kensington, Kensington Gardens, Bayswater, Hyde Park, Piccadilly Circus. The people that I have met over the years. Friends that I have come to know well from all walks of life. People I hold dear. They were what I thought about before I left. I had so many good memories of London at those places with good friends.

Which is maybe why leaving Hardy Road was hard for D and H. For them, it is more about the physical home. The physical place that they held memories at. The houses I lived in were pretty painful - crammed full of people, no privacy, yes full of love, but no space! D& H have had pretty decent houses to be brought up in. Their own space to be their own person. 

I now realised why for years after moving back to Singapore after uni, I craved coming back to London, why I saw it as home more than Singapore. Why, only now, I feel the need to set up "home". An English friend who recently moved to Sweden mentioned this in our recent visit. She crossed over to Asia from the UK for 12 years as an expat and landed in Sweden recently. At the same time, I moved from Asia to the UK and recently landed in California. We compared notes and she said that only upon landing in Sweden had she finally decided that it was time to create her home. Not "live out of a suitcase" as it were. 

I agree. Who knows if California is forever, but I think it might be time to create my "forever home" (replete with doggies!) wherever I am. With sun of course. 

Definitely with sun. 

Lots of love from California xoxo