Thailand - A New Home?

 Home is such a funny concept to me and I feel like it has been for a long time. I have a lot of homes and I consider them all my home in one way or another even up to this day. 

Obviously my first home is the home that I grew up in Kandiyohi. It was the home that I most remember from my childhood. It was my home before my family and I went to Zambia and it was my home afterwards too. I had lived in pretty much every single room of that house before we moved to our new house and that place will always be my childhood home. 

Then of course there is my home in Zambia, the first one there. It's the home that my dad built for our family and I can still remember the exact layout of the floor plan and the outside garden and landscaping. I especially remember the huge porch that we had and back then I would actually get up early enough to watch the sunrise when it was still cool enough in the mornings to need a blanket outside. That house in Zambia is such a special home to me and represents such a part of my life and place that really molded how I grew up. It's been over a decade since I have been there and it still feels just as important to me now as it did back then. 

Of course there are temporary homes that I have had, like my college dorm where it was my home for a season but I could never return to it. I spent most of my college years in the same dorm - in the same room and it was an important space to me when I had it. 

Then as many of you know, I did spend three months in Zambia at New Day Orphanage and that in a way became a real home to me too, both in the place and in the people. I met incredible people there and I still miss them to this day. It's an interesting feeling when you have a home that you know is only temporary, because knowing that there is a time limit really makes you go into the experience with a different mindset. 

And now after having my home consistently with my family for the past two years since college, I now have to make a new home several thousand miles away from anyone I know and by myself. It is something that feels both familiar and scary at the same time. I know that it's possible and that I absolutely have to do it in order to have a good experience and be happy here in Thailand. 

Home is just a funny topic and can be such a strange experience, but I am so excited to get to have a chance to make a new home in Thailand and to share it not only with the people back home albeit virtually, but also share it with the new friends that I am making throughout this experience. 

I think this is as good of a place to end this post as can be otherwise I will keep on waxing poetically about the word home and all of its personal meanings.