2010/ 11 years old/ Pakistan
I was in the car, my parents in the front seats, me peaking eagerly from behind. My mother turned around and asked: ‘How would you feel about moving to another country?’
Intrigued yet excited, I said: ‘I don’t know, you are the parents, you decide.’ Deep down, I have always had a fascination with migrating to a different country. I had often envied relatives living abroad because it seemed like they had a much better life.
2011/ 12 years old/ Saudi Arabia
I was miserable and homesick. Both my parents left for work early and I had to take care of two younger siblings. Despite their respectable jobs, they were slaving away on the orders of rich Arab men while I was imagining when we would have the money to get that pink themed room I always wanted. We had broken the cycle and left the motherland so when were all my dreams going to be fulfilled?
2013/ 14 years old/ Saudi Arabia
I was surprised at myself. I had managed to make a group of friends that were loyal and understood me. Our family had finally settled into the new country. We had our favourite places to have Saturday night dinners, neighbours to hang out with and a sense of belonging within the Muslim community. Some nights, I would dream of growing old with these friends and achieving all the milestones in this house we were living in for the past three years.
Even though we could never become proper citizens of this country, it had started to feel like home. Life was good.
2014/ 15 years old/ Saudi Arabia
I had been crying for the past week. My exams had just finished and I was partying with my friends but then my mother told me the news. We might be moving again. To somewhere we can get a Blue passport from. I didn’t want to leave the life we had worked so hard to build. But we had to. After all, parents know what’s best for their children.
2015/ 16 years old/ Tasmania
I dreaded leaving the house. The people and surroundings were too different. We had no family or friends here. Instead of going out and meeting new people, I would spend my time watching TV shows that reminded me of home. Not where I was born but where I had left my recent memories behind. That was my home.
2017/ 18 years old/ Tasmania
I had managed to make a few friends. I felt proud explaining my migrant background to those who were curious. Sometimes it made me feel special. I was about to graduate from a school in a place I never thought I would live in. I was quite proud of myself for adapting to foreign soil.
But then, I would look at this group of girls in my school. They had been friends since kindergarten, blooming in all the years they had known each other. I wondered what it would have been like to stick around in a place long enough for people to remember your first day at school till your last.
2019/ 20 years old/ Victoria
I moved to a different state for university. My family moved with me, packing up our things for yet another time.
Someone in my new class asked me: ‘Where are you from?’ I did not know what to answer because my heart had been shattered and distributed to so many places, it didn’t know where it belonged. After all, home is where the heart is.
If 11 year old me knew then what I know now, she would have said something entirely different.
But alas that would have been impossible, so here I am questioning. Where is home?
worldmindsandfiction 