This is not a Home.

If you’re just joining us head on back to the first post, or view the entire series.

Wrapping up this story

The author of this tale has become bored.  From past experience, this happens to me with every single story I’ve started to write, been distracted from, then tried to return to at a later date.  I genuinely want to continue in the same vein however the mindset and emotions have moved on since.  Thus, we’ve arrived at the part of the journey where the writer had one or two clever things planned, cuts some out for expediency, and finishes the whole thing out of a sense of duty and due course.  In order to dash off to that bright, shiny object in the distance.

I’m still going to add my clever things and there will still be one more post after this to tie it all together properly (and raise more questions than I could ever hope or want to answer).  Still want to skip though, partly.  Therefore I’m going to be as concise as I can possibly be, take far longer writing a post because I want to be concise and clear, then somewhere along the line re-capture my vein of thought and have a climatic final post.  Sound good?

Returning ‘Home’ and Travelling back to Scotland

As it turns out, not the same thing at all.  Before you go racing off thinking I mean that Canada’s more home to me than anywhere else, I miss it, and I don’t know why I ever came back – wait a moment while I explain.

Home cannot be a place.  It cannot be a person.  It cannot be a thing.

For a long time I’ve been thinking of it as something more than ‘just’ any one of those things, but up until I left my usual haunting ground I still had ties to it, or people (mostly people, a fact that creeped some of them out) being an important factor.  I thought that so long as I was with x person I would be at home.  I thought so long as I was somewhere I found welcoming, or beautiful to me I would be home.  I thought that so long as there was some place I could call my own, where no one else would bother me and I could do whatever I wanted (within certain confines) I would be home.  As a result, it’s taken me this long to figure out what home actually means for me.

Home is an emotion.

Or, if you will, a set of emotions or experiences that trigger a specific feeling within yourself.  Whenever I was with that person, or in one of those places, at times that would create an environment where the ‘correct’ set of emotions would present itself.  Hence my overall confusion.

When I left Canada again I felt confused and a bit hurt.  I didn’t want to go back to my old ‘Home’ because I’d found somewhere that felt more like it for me.  I was in a place that caused the right set of reactions, with people that triggered the right emotions, and in an environment that allowed me to grow and be myself.  Returning left me disjointed and lost, and for a short while I forgot what I’d learned about choices and being happy.  I felt too out of place and awkward to remember.

Time, Improvements, all that stuff

Over the last couple of weeks I remembered the ‘choices’ part of my new mindset.  It got thoroughly adopted again and I’ve been in an extraordinarily good mood ever since.  Ups and downs still, as you’d expect through the course of everyday life, but nowhere near extreme enough to phase me, or rock my mood in any lasting way.  More up than down, in a balanced manner, for the first time in my teen/adult life.

Over the last 4-5 days I’ve been thinking about and discovering something even more important.  Something that’s taken me from feeling ‘happy’ to feeling whole.  This one thing has given me more lasting comfort, freedom, and granted me more permission to play than just about anything else I’ve come across.  Recently.  I have to add recently because there’ve been quite a few things in my life that have revolutionised the way I think to that extent.

Acceptance

What really lets us come home is accepting ourselves as we are, not wishing to be anyone else, and if we truly want to become better – it’s the belief that we can.  It’s treating yourself well; your thoughts, your emotions, your ideas, who you are.  It’s loving yourself enough to stand with yourself, by your beliefs, and not apologise for it.

I don’t know everything, I haven’t experienced everything, and over the course of my life I’m going to make as many mistakes as I possibly can.  Let’s be honest, if that’s my goal I’m already on my way (and I’m sure that everyone here can say the same).  I’m happy with the way I am, and with the knowledge that I can continue growing.

Return of a Thought

Going back to the second post I wrote in this series, I asked what would happen if you took someone away from the life they lived and placed them somewhere else, where everyone knows them as the way they present themselves online.  The best of themselves, for the sake of argument.  I hope you had an answer in your mind, if not just think about it for a moment; what would happen to you if that was the case?

… I’m serious – think about it.

Do not read any further until you do.

I didn’t think about it until it happened; not in those terms.  I just wanted to go and see someone, and I was nervous about going so far though I was more excited than anything else.  Nothing could have prepared me for this.  Frankly, I don’t think I wanted to be prepared anyway.

Sometimes you have to leave your ‘home’ to find yourself.  Cliche, maybe.  Tired old phrase – sure, why not.  True?  I believe so.  Go find out for yourself.

You can find the first post in the series over here, and all the posts here.

Winding down to a neat ending

Confusing part of the story dealt with, a new sense of enthusiasm for the tale, and a night of drunken debauchery (Sounds much more fun than it was) later we’re ready to continue on with the clean, fairytale ending.  In a mad race to get things over with the writing takes on a pace of its own, cliches are thrown around to taste, and everything wraps up neatly into a nice little package.  Until said author gets bored with the sappy, happy stuff.  Ah well.

The lightbulb that changed me

It was a concept so simple, so easy, so ludicrously effective that I’m actually embarrassed I didn’t figure it out before.   Overnight it took me from a rebellious, moody teenager/new twenty year old to someone pleased with life and happy to live it her way.  It wasn’t even one of those huge industrial-sized lightbulbs either; it was one of those small energy savers you pop into lamps and ceiling lights.  Pretty common fare really, nothing special or dazzling.

In fact, the lightbulb was so common that I’m certain people had been trying to explain it to me for years.  One of those lightbulbs.

Hopeful, but not certain

When I first got it through my skull I didn’t quite believe it was so simple.   The first moments were full of hopeful disbelief.  Like those moments where you’re sitting on Christmas morning, hoping you get the super-amazing-skateboard of doom (as an example), you see a package that looks like it could be it from your parents.  You hope that’s what it is.  Sincerely, hope that’s what it is.  Time comes for you to open it, by now you’re getting excited, hoping that its the skateboard (of doom) but somehow managing to keep a voice in your head saying ‘That can’t be it’ in case you’re disappointed.  At the very last moment you see something that makes you believe your initial hope, you open it up, and you’re rewarded.

Happiness and running around like a lunatic ensues.

It was like that with this idea.  I hoped it was right, it felt right, I was excited about it being right, but I didn’t expect it to be anywhere near as easy as it was.  I remained unconvinced until after the first day of testing it out.

Then I was blown away

I started the day happy, I ended it happy, and wouldn’t you know it – the middle part was happy too.  No hiccups, no mood swings.  And most important of all, it didn’t feel forced or fake.  It felt real.  Damn it felt good.

So I tried it the next day, and the next; same results.  By then I was nearly jumping for joy internally – I’d found it.  I’d figured it out, and I was no longer hard work (well, not in the same league in any case).

The secret that helped me?

It’s only a choice.

You can choose to look at things from another’s point of view.  You can choose whether to be happy, or to be hurt.  You can choose how stressed you become over simple, everyday things.  You can choose not to feel like the whole world is out to make you miserable (because it isn’t).  You can choose to really care for another’s comfort and well-being, without sacrificing your own.

Not flashy or sparkly but fundamentally useful

Unfortunately, it’d taken me right up until the last week to figure it all out.  I went home a few days afterwards, back to my old dynamic and set of rules.  I love my family dearly and I’d been missing them a little bit; do you think I really wanted to return?

And more; Do you think my new found ‘happiness’ could survive the plane journey home?

If you’re just joining the series start at the first post, and for those already following – have you read part two?

Jumping back into the story

Having had our thoughtful pause it’s now time to carry on as if we’d never stopped for the interlude while bearing in mind what was said.   We’re now entering the middle part of the story; everything gets mixed up and thrown around by the author though not much seems to happen in the story itself.  This is the part where the writer starts wondering whether they’re chasing the right tale, or using the right tone.  Traditionally, this part is boring and has to be edited out later.

I’m not a huge stickler for tradition any more.

As I started to explain in the first part of this little series, some things have changed with me for no more discernable reason than living someone else’s life for a while.  Admittedly, that life was completely different to the one I was used to and I was so rocked by it that-

Let’s rewind a bit so we can both be on the same page.

I said before that I was instantly captivated by the Canadian lifestyle, and felt immediately more at home.  This is true.  It’s also not entirely correct.

There were teething problems; being in an environment where it was suddenly ok to be myself was disconcerting to say the least.  To say the most would take quite a while.  To get a feel for it imagine filling a bottle with air at high altitude.  When you’re up there the bottle stays the same shape, and is fairly light but not compacted.  Bring it down to water level and that same bottle is crushed, because the pressure itself has changed and the air inside it isn’t as ‘dense’ (for lack of the proper word).  Taken in reverse presumably the bottle would expand unless the air was released on the way.

For a while in the middle I felt like I was both the bottle going down the mountain, and the bottle going up.  Suddenly being able to express myself left me able to expand (with sometimes explosive consequences), but just as suddenly having to deal with the real world put me under more stress.  In a sense I was literally being left to grow into a new mold; free to stretch into some new areas but unable to continue with some other, older habits.

Around that middle time I was a nightmare to be around.

I can look at it now and see why I reacted the way I did.  However lets make something clear; at the time I had no idea what was going on with me.  I was emotional – happy one day, angry and hurt the next.  Completely irrational as who I’d always been and who I was becoming warred, yet here’s the thing.  I also had moments of absolute clarity, where everything made sense and nothing could phase me.

Followed rapidly by a tantrum (I kid you not) over something childish.

Guess we all have to learn somewhere, right?

This wasn’t a stage that passed quickly.  It did ease gradually as I hit lightbulb moments however the change in me wasn’t ‘complete’ until I realised one, simple thing.

That I’m going to make you wait for the next part for.  Naturally.

Haggis, Neeps and Tatties Courtesy of Wikimedia

If you haven’t already, go ahead and read the first part of this story – I can wait.

A Thoughtful Interlude

Having established the protagonist in our story, provided a bit of background information, and started to build the tension it’s time to do the most infuriating thing I’ve known authors to do.  It’s time to take a break from story advancement to fill in information and ponder.  While in theory I could just advance I’m fairly sure the literacy police would be after me if I did.  Sorry.  Can’t do it.  You’ll have to take a small pause with me to reflect (tradition, see?).

The horizon is broad.

With the new connections we have open to us thanks to the internet we’d be forgiven for thinking that the world (or the technological part of it at least) was starting to merge together.  Surely by now everyone would be pulled into this larger melting pot, stirred round, and left much the same as everyone else?  Why should it make a difference whether you’re in Canada or Scotland?

Some of us have grown up being able to talk to people from around the world as if they were sitting right next to us.  For others it’s a newer thing.  The idea of having friends thousands of miles away is becoming mainstream.  Playing games with people you’ve only ever met online against other people you don’t even know there isn’t news either.   In many respects we’re far more capable of connecting with others than we have been previously and this may blind us to the cultural differences that still exist.

Aliens may experience slight discomfort…

Turns of phrase, words, pronunciation, spelling, currency… these things acquire different meanings the second you step off your porch!

What’s more everyone looks different, behaves differently, acts differently, sounds different, and have their own styles.  Each country has their own history and their own political standpoint.  Positives in one country can be negative in another.  Unimportant things to one person can be a grievous insult elsewhere.

Logically, an outsider would feel even more alien while visiting far off lands than they ever would in their home country.  Logically, they’d grow to feel homesick.  Right?

Then why would I admit to feeling more at home and at ease somewhere I’d never even visited previously?

Look at it in isolation for a moment – it just doesn’t make sense!

Yet I’m willing to bet that, with the way things are changing, I’m not the first or last person to feel that way.  This is huge.  We’re creating our own families, our own sets of friends and lives independent of our birth location; even 50 years ago I doubt they would have seen that.  I can’t vouch for that either way; I wasn’t even a foetus 50 years ago.

Keep that image in the back of your mind and lets relate it to something we can all relate to.

Social Networking

Facebook.  Twitter.  Blogs.  Forums.  Gaming, Surfing, Researching, Buying, Selling, Instant Messengers.  Every time we use one of these tools we’re communicating.  What’s more, we’re communicating with people we can’t see with our eyes, can’t hear with our ears, can’t touch with our hands…  Yet we’re touched in our minds and hearts.

Before we get all skeptical and head to the comments (or close the page, that could happen too), dear readers – does it hurt when someone insults you online?  Do you feel happy when people you’ve connected with are happy, or do something nice?  Have you ever had a crush on someone half a world away, and waited around all day for them just to appear on your screen?

I have a theory, and it may be one that other people have explored in greater depth or even studied extensively.  It’s one that’s just becoming apparent to me by looking and living and being an ‘internet person’.

Connections we make online cause more of an impact.

When we can’t see or hear signs of displeasure in other people while communicating with them, we’re going to be less afraid to open up.  I don’t mean pouring out your heart and soul (though that does happen) I mean giving your real opinions and talking about stuff that matters to you.  Sure, we can all fake a persona online and a lot of people do it all the time – that works for them.  What if they only think they’re faking?  What if, the person they’re pretending to be (on purpose or not) is a reflection of who they always wanted to be, of who they are, or of who they’re afraid they are?

And if you’re ‘pretending’ to be who you’ve always wanted to be, what happens when you visit the people that know you as that person?

Points to Ponder.