Well, it's not exactly autumn anymore, but I feel as though I've been cheated out of the most beautiful season of the year. Everything's still green here. That's not to say the trees aren't bare or holding on to their browned leaves for dear life, just that Autumn wasn't quite as marvellous as I had expected it to be when I first arrived here, thinking about how the green would slowly turn into a marvellous mix of yellow, orange and red as I'm so used to seeing in the leaves back home. It didn't quite live up to my expectations. I still see a large mass of green as I look out the window and the only color changing that's really taken place was one of the hills which actually turned white a couple times due to the snow. That's not to say I'd give up all this green to have autumn back, although I could do without all the rain. I suppose it's just another one of those changes where you remember that it's not good or bad, it's not better or worse, it's just completely different.
And that slowly brings me onto my next topic. As I walk across Urnieta from home to the polideportivo (basically a sports center where there's a gym for handball games, a swimming pool, a soccer field, tennis courts and other facilities as well as the showers. every town has one) I generally have a little chunk of time to myself, alone, just to think about whatever or listen to music. Friday, on my way to practice, as I passed by this little park for kids that I have to go through every time I go to practice, to meet with my friends, the bus station or even just to buy lettuce from the supermarket if I take that route, I got this strange, warm feeling inside me all of a sudden. I didn't quite know what it was at first, but it felt familiar. Today, it happened again, as I was lying on the couch attempting to take a siesta, but in the end didn't manage doing so, but I felt so comfortable under a warm blanket just looking at the reflection of the little streak of clouds in an otherwise clear sky in the glass of a large painting hung in the living room. But as I mulled over, once again, what the feeling could possibly be, I remembered back to those days in Tenafly where I'd go out for a short walk with some music just to enjoy the fall weather and, of course, to marvel at all the colors that surrounded me. Those were the days where I'd get that very same feeling I've been having lately, and I've finally discovered what it really means: it's that "home" feeling. That warm feeling you get on the inside when you just feel so safe and, well, at home, with your surroundings, where everything's so normal to you, and you feel as though you could walk around with a blindfold on and still find your way because you're so sure of where everything is and what's going on around you.
I guess getting that feeling is supposed to be a big feat in my year here, finally feeling comfortable and confident with where I am, having overcome the initial overall feeling of just being completely lost in another world based on completely different morals, history, geography, culture, language, and customs than what I've grown up with. But I think it has had a different meaning for me. It's been more of a catalyst for me. It's sparked new trains of thought running through my mind, new perspectives of the two lives I've now become accustomed to.
I once told my host mom how I've never felt like I've ever really "belonged." In every place I've lived, every place I've gone to school, for one reason or another, I just never quite felt completely at peace with myself, as though there was just something "off" between the harmony of me and my surroundings. But getting that "home" feeling on my way to practice, reminding myself all of a sudden of those days where I'd go from the track to the gym at school after track practice or waking up at 8 in the morning christmas break to go run ten 400's in the freezing cold, made me realize the true meaning of the word "home." You don't quite have to fit in with everybody else to feel at home, and you don't even have to feel like you belong. Home isn't the place where you were born, and it doesn't even have to be where you've spent all your life. For many of us, well, that may be the case. It could be where you grew up, where you are now, where you spent your time studying, whether it be college, boarding school, even studying abroad, but it's not the where that makes the difference. The "where" is what we often call "house," but the real "home" is, well, that's you. Home lies within all of us, and it takes a while to dig deep down enough to unlock it, and a whole lot longer to interpret it your way. For me, home is normal. Home is that place where, as I said earlier, you feel like you can walk around with a blindfold on, just because you feel so safe and secure, so sure about yourself and where you are. It's that harmony I talked about earlier between you and your surroundings that I've always felt was a little off-beat. What I've come to realize is, you can't always be in harmony with the world. In fact, you're almost never in agreement with "home," but those precious moments where you get the "home" feeling remind you that it doesn't matter whether or not you're in the town you grew up in or whether or not you still go to the same supermarket to buy chicken or whether or not you're even with your family. It reminds you that, in the very least, you're secure, comfortable, and, most importantly, safe.
