Green Grass Gazing

Being more than seven thousand miles from “home” is challenging, sharpening and trying. But I can’t say I didn’t ask for it.

Home has always been a vague term for me. If home is where your family is then my home is currently in Greece (a country to which I have never even visited myself). I have always toiled with my origins and with the question of “where is home?”. Honestly, God knows.

I certainly don’t.

It’s so trendy to have a map (see above) making me seem so far from my lake house and two puppies, but to be honest, even that place leaves me yearning to leave and explore the world.

So here I am, with what Google calls 18hr and 15min away from said structure, writing in a city of culture, dust and potential success for my budding career. But I am still lonely. I wake up on my days off and eat breakfast with country hit music on YouTube, drinking out of a Starbucks mug from Barcelona.

I am a proponent and strong believer in things (and people) being sexier with distance. Florida seems like a palm tree oasis. My friends, extroverted life-lovers, frolic in the States waiting for my return. Narcissistic I know, but my thoughts nonetheless.

Yet I know my memories of this city will be polished with only happiness the moment I leave. For some reason, beyond my capacity of understanding, I will forget the sad Sundays, frizzy hair and constant push to not be alone on weeknights. Real life, I guess, is a hard blow and Doha isn’t a field of college students bored enough to hang out with you. The grass, pardon my cliche’d approach, is greener on the other side (even in countries like Qatar that don’t have grass).

How do you combat such a turmoiled existence? What’sApp me if you know (It’s actually a real thing and my number is my US number, so, HMU).

I know I am called to be in this part of the world (and soon live here permanently), pursuing what I am and meeting the people I work alongside. But there is something to be said about the college friends and hometown bodies who knew you before you were a professional face in a newsroom, who knew you on sketchy Ocala nights and still loved you.

Will the memories I am making now, with the people I am making them with, turn into gold like the memories from “home” have? Given my experience with extensive traveling and green grass gazing, they surely will. Comparisons, not curiosity, killed the cat and I need to shake my imposed glamour on my western life and live happily in the east.

As I said before, I asked for this. I want this. And let’s be real: Life is not bad here–at all. I am blessed and this journey is a gift. The happy Instagram posts are real, but there is also another side to the story. Pursuing your dreams is riveting, rarely glamourous, and requires thousands of hours of work that I am looking down the barrel at. It’s hard being away from the familiar, but at “home” it’s hard being in an environment of constant familiarities. I’m culturally bipolar, ok.

The opportunities here are gold-lined and contain a divine conspiracy that I cannot fathom at this stage. Something big is brewing and I am in the right place at the right time. No one said it would be easy, but my gut and my God are saying it will be worth it.

This is good, Leah, and remember yourself when you were wanting to be here. Nothing else fits and anything would be challenging to master.

The next stage is rough and will be turbulent, but so are oceans and airplanes and I have grown in my love for both (pitiful comparison but it works here).

Ingrid Michaelson, thank God for her, said it well. Indeed, “I’m a little bit home but I’m not there yet”.

Maybe all of this is me just chasing home. I want to feel at home and I forget that for my entire life, I never have. Challenge and change drive  me and are more comforting than plush pillows and expected sights. I chase what I don’t have, and for me, that has served as home.

Faith, family and friends first (and football, American football), followed by the curiosity for what’s next. Living for now, enjoying those I have now and seeing now for what it is is my greatest struggle. I am blessed beyond measure and love those who know me for me. Sometimes you have to leave home to realize you may already have one. The journey is in the works for me and the growing pains are tangible (I also ran a 5K yesterday, so that may be part of it).

Let’s raise a glass of wine to the struggle, for the struggle is real no matter where you are. Actually, raise two (one for me)– It’s Ramadan here and I can’t drink.

Cheers, faithful blog readers.