Korea notes: home

The concept of “Home” eludes us.

When I think about belonging somewhere, I immediately think about the question “Where is Home for me?”

Where is home for me?

Spirit Week 2020 - Jungle Day — Spirit Week 2020 – Jungle Day

Spirit Week 2020 - Orange Day — Spirit Week 2020 – Jungle Day

For a lot of people, “Home is where the heart is” rings true. If that’s the case, then I have a LOT of homes. It’s like home for me is a grand listing of people, places, and times.

For me, this sentiment wrestles in the thought of “Well… where is my heart?” I answer that question easily, but the answer itself is pretty hard. I put my heart into so many things. I love people; I love laughing; I love french fries. I am passionate about progress, about injustice, about peace and reflection. My heart goes out to creatives, people hurting, those trying to just make it by everyday. In that case, I bring all of it with me, wherever I go.

So again, where is home?

In my recent vacation to Jeju Island, I got to do some much needed reflection time about my experience in Korea.

Writing this (Sept. 2, 2020), it’s my nine month mark of being here. On paper, that reads like plenty of time. But in living, it’s gone by so fast. I’ve launched in to this time of my life where I feel so uncomfortable. I’m very much away from what I would call my home. I lived in Central Minnesota for 24 years, and I came to a place where I felt I left some “home” behind. The physical location is different. My schedule is different. Whom I spend my time with is different. I miss my MN friends and family SO much. The love I share with those people are the closest thing I can definitively package as “home”.

My learning and growing here is very intentional. I came to be uncomfortable. I came to be somewhere unknown. That was the whole point of it. I think being somewhere completely new has given me opportunity to revisit myself and think about “my home” in a different sense.

tv x..... homework o — tv x….. homework o

That “revisiting” only causes to acknowledge the space there is. Empty spaces we thought we filled, or we once had something that is no longer there. What’s more, I think there is a lot to be said for restoration. Any time we reconcile with ourselves or other people; it means we get to reconnect with home, in a sense. Or perhaps we get to rediscover how we create home for others within ourselves. We rediscover how we create home for ourselves within ourselves.

There’s a Belonging feeling to home in regards to stepping back from being us everyday.

In other words. I don’t fully understand what it feels like to have that “home-y” feeling about myself. I don’t call Karl Johnson home, like others would or like I call my people home as mentioned above. And I think that my journey into Belonging is understanding that.