500 miles - peter, paul and mary

I spent my entire life trying to find a way to leave this place. i’ve spent my entire life looking for a home.

I found a home in many places and people. I found home when i moved abroad, every. single. time. i remember a conversation i had in brighton with my then friends. it was the first week of uni. we were at the smoking area and i had hickeys on my neck. and my friends asked what i did last night. and not even for a second, did i have to hide who i am. i told them it was a girl and i didn’t need to think it through and process it before saying it out loud. and i obviously never had that with my friends in greece, not a bad way at least. but i did have to explain myself to everyone before that. i never had the chance to just say it before.

i found home in that person that took me to my room my 3rd night volunteering in latvia, and they tucked me in bed covered in vomit. and the next day they held my hand and took me to the market where i bought an orange and they laughed at me and then took a picture of me holding my orange proudly on the bridge. and they took me home and they cared for me. and they bought me pastries in the morning and brought me water, every time they saw me early or i had to work. and they cuddled me at the airport when we had 8 hours left, for the rest of our lives. and they saw right through me and they liked that.

i found home at a hostel bathroom in bratislava when i did coke with my friends and we were so certain it didn’t work but we spent an hour talking very fast about everything. and we spent the next night awake even though we had work early in the morning because one of them was leaving. and me and him had a kebab in the middle of the night two nights prior to that and we discussed about tattoos and parents and choosing your own path in life.

and i built a home back in my hometown. i found new and old friends. i created a home. a small little home. and the boss at my favorite bar knows my name and found me on facebook. and the girl that works at the wine place remembers me.

and when i travel i build a home everywhere i go again. and i have yearly reunions with a friend that now lives on the other side of the world but we will meet every august for 5 days. and i plan my vacation around people’s vacation from all over the world. and i met my partner in another country.

but back to greece. it’s pretty funny how i spent my entire life trying to live only to come back to it and decide to stay. i guess i am trying to enjoy as much time i have here as possible because i know i’ll have to leave soon. it’s very saddening and tragic to love a country, a mother, that doesn’t love you back. because i will always stand out here and the old man at the super market will always stare. and everything i love is far away. and everything i want to be doesn’t exist here. and this country, this mother, who i love so dearly, will never support me. and that is my biggest tragedy. i’ll never be able to be happy here. i don’t know if i’ll achieve it somewhere else either. but at least somewhere else i have the option to try. i have possibilities. i don’t have any prospects in a country that despises everything i am. a conservative country. a country with such rich history of arts, that hates art.

i will forever long for greece anywhere i am, and i will forever long everywhere when i’m in greece. i will forever long for a mother that loves me for who i am, and supports me in spite of it. what a shame to chase your kids away.

older people constantly say you’ll never find a place like greece and no matter how much i disagree with them when they tell me that, i completely agree. and that’s both a blessing and a curse.