WE WILL FIND OUR WAY HOME
An essay about Home and feelings associated around Home.
by Rossane Putri
by Rossane Putri
Never the fully solid person, I am, left blank from my unsureness of how to best start this
—I want to go straight into this topic—I’ll try to elaborate slowly. There should be no rush in processing how words flow through you. I shall let it pour slowly until we both get to the point
where the dam breaks.
We begin with the trickle of thought which brought this letter to you: I wonder what Home truly is. Despite of growing up for more than half of my years in a place I supposedly call Home, I find that I still question its meaning too often. I wonder if you do, too. There is this weird longing I’ve always
had for Home. I want to go Home. I want to go Home even when I am at home.
My definition of Home, at this moment in time, would be: A place you can truly be yourself in.
A place for stay wherein you can truly feel like yourself without judgement. Safe. Comfort. Accepting. Whole. The “I”, at its core, is the essence of a Home. Multiple “I”s coming together. Feeling every one as their own “I”.
From this at-the-moment definition, I realize that I am, in fact, homeless.
Maybe you’re asking why. I don’t know why. It’s honestly just the feeling that I can never be myself anywhere. I’ve never wholly been myself. Therefore I do not know who I am. I know the things that my “I” knows but I do not know the “I” that knows about all these things. Does it make sense? If it does then I am asking you. How do I come Home when I am missing the “I” core? Where do I look for Home when I don’t know how to look into my self? I have too many questions. A Home is a place where true “I” coexist. I need to know me. If I don’t know how to look inside, my traces in the world might lead me to my heart. Please bear with me. I am still learning.
Let’s start with the first people I ever knew. Who brought me into this world. People say,
your family is your Home. I agree. I want to agree. Let’s just say I agree.
My family. My mother and father. Bunda, Ayah. You’ve brought me into this world and watched
me grow. Cared for me. Thank you. But I feel that the more I grow up the further away you feel like Home. I am trying. I know I am Home to you. I know you are also trying. I don’t want to force needles down your throats even when you said you can handle it because I know for sure you won’t. It is my fault for being “I”. I’m sorry I feel that I need to discard some parts as to not tear this house down. After all you have given me. I am forever grateful. But as a whole I am also selfish and “I” don’t know how to tell you. You have me, almost all of me, and I’ll make sure you always will, because I need to say sorry and the only way I can say the truth in this home is to try my best to keep the version of me you love. Thank you for showering me with a taste of Home. I wish you both happiness.
Say hi to my little sister. She is becoming too much like me. Maybe the closest to Home amongst the people I know. Perhaps. Crybaby little sister. Angry little sister, I hug you once and I think the briefly counted seconds are Home. I know you don’t like letting go but I know you’ll get through it anyways. Goes into everything head first little sister. Please don’t forget to look after yourself. We find and share and learn too many things by smashing our skulls. I find you fascinating. Here is a briefly constant Home.
Speaking of, I find traces of me in friend groups. Friend groups are briefly constant homes resembling a trampoline. I hop on it and it’s fun and exciting and after I’m done I realize that you are not mine. That I can’t keep jumping forever. It comes and goes. I realize there will always be a limit to what I can share. Don’t get me wrong, real friends are the people you can talk to about both the good and the bad things. That is true. But I am telling you the limit to that sharing is the context of “I”. Your friends are not you and it is not their fault. It is not your fault. It’s just the way it’s always been. Company might not be a Home that lasts till the end of Time, but memories live inside you forever. We walk hand-in-hand until we have to let go for other homes.
The bright green of my sheets is the first thing I see when I wake up. I’m trying to see if this rectangular rental can be my Home.
It was a room for three. One bed for each person. One desk, one dresser, blank walls. Just enough
to live in. In my search for Home I’ve started to think of this place as an extension of some part of me. This view from my window only I can see. The previously blank wall I’ve filled up with posters and keepsakes. Postcards, memos, a poem. Little reminders I can’t install completely into memory but will always feel in my Heart. I wish I could install sensory sensations into the soul. Why must there
be a barrier of feeling? It is nearly impossible to reincarnate the outside senses without holding a physical proof. I’m trying to collect every physical proof of existence into this extension of mine;
this room. And even though it is not completely mine I won’t have to deal with it until the start of next month, and the next month, and the next next month. I’ll bury the thought of a borrowed space until I have to draw back my sheets and wake up to greet the day.
You see, I remember a thing from 7 years. Whenever I did something wrong, my Mother would jokingly scare me by saying that she’d put me back in her belly. Send me back to Heaven, or something. In this hazy interlude I am thinking that would be really nice. To return back to the enclosed bubble of my Mother’s womb. There was no need to think about dividing the self in tiny pieces or extending myself over to a whole new world. Eternal sleep. Sometimes this thought holds me back from growing up. A born human homesick for the womb. Whenever growing up feels like too much, I want to go Home. No one told me there are deadlines you must meet to be a person.
No one told me that to be your own Home you must mature before a certain deadline or you will
be lost forever. The world tells me to take my time but they are also the one forcing me to sort everything out in time.
Growing up is a pain I don’t know how to describe. To grow up physically my parents told me, Sleep. It’s naive to think that I can sleep away the other kind of growing pain. My mind remains stuck in this limbo of pain and weird longing. In this limbo I am a fever dream. I am awake and dreaming of a dream that I am awake and it makes me nauseous. Disorienting and everything is spinning. One moment all you had to worry about was which hair tie you’re going to wear to school tomorrow.
The next, you’re thinking of how to escape your own body. Life goes by in flashes. I find that I can
no longer solve a Grade 8th’s Chemistry problem.
way sustainable. I wonder how other people does it? How did they grow out into their Home? I am rethinking my definition of Home because I realized within the limbo of self it is hard to integrate
the sensory and the spiritual. Therefore you try to materialize and extend your spiritual home into the space around you. Emphasis on try. Sometimes it does not work. I realize that what I truly needed was to acknowledge my inner spiritual state of Home. What am I? I am a daughter. I am a son. I am also neither. I am a sister, I am a friend. I am a person. I am currently a student. I need to be my own Home and there are many of Me. Many familiar states of me. Gestalt theory states that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The whole is the “I” and I am not near good enough to stick pieces of elements and create a complete life. It is okay to be what you are familiar with so as to not lose yourself while you continue to grow and work out all the other pieces.
I might have to redefine and accept that there is not One Forever Home because the self is ever evolving. One day I am me and the next day I am still me and we both come home to the same body when we sleep yet we are two different states. In each of our states we share different things to those around us and receives different things from those around us. Those around us are also searching. I would like to think we are all experiencing the same pain in different ways. In the stuffiness of a limbo everyone needs to unapologetically accept that we are all searching for homes to come back to and that we are all chasing the invisible deadline. That's all there is left to do.
Once we have embraced all that we are, once we've come into a place of peace, all we can do is share ourselves. Give ourselves away. Give ourselves to as many people as possible. We will no longer be seeking to become complete by rescuing others, because we will realize that we are already complete. We are already complete. We might not see or feel it but we are. I am sorry if I sound preachy, but I am letting this new definition grow on me. I have to lovingly remind myself that I am already whole. I’m also sorry If there are no pictures to accompany my thoughts, I hope this reaches you regardless. Let’s grow in our own terms together. Know that I am rooting for you.
—I want to go straight into this topic—I’ll try to elaborate slowly. There should be no rush in processing how words flow through you. I shall let it pour slowly until we both get to the point
where the dam breaks.
We begin with the trickle of thought which brought this letter to you: I wonder what Home truly is. Despite of growing up for more than half of my years in a place I supposedly call Home, I find that I still question its meaning too often. I wonder if you do, too. There is this weird longing I’ve always
had for Home. I want to go Home. I want to go Home even when I am at home.
An Unrevised, Yet, Still Solid Definition of A Home
What is a Home?My definition of Home, at this moment in time, would be: A place you can truly be yourself in.
A place for stay wherein you can truly feel like yourself without judgement. Safe. Comfort. Accepting. Whole. The “I”, at its core, is the essence of a Home. Multiple “I”s coming together. Feeling every one as their own “I”.
From this at-the-moment definition, I realize that I am, in fact, homeless.
Maybe you’re asking why. I don’t know why. It’s honestly just the feeling that I can never be myself anywhere. I’ve never wholly been myself. Therefore I do not know who I am. I know the things that my “I” knows but I do not know the “I” that knows about all these things. Does it make sense? If it does then I am asking you. How do I come Home when I am missing the “I” core? Where do I look for Home when I don’t know how to look into my self? I have too many questions. A Home is a place where true “I” coexist. I need to know me. If I don’t know how to look inside, my traces in the world might lead me to my heart. Please bear with me. I am still learning.
Finding Home In People and Relationships with People
Let’s start with the first people I ever knew. Who brought me into this world. People say,
your family is your Home. I agree. I want to agree. Let’s just say I agree.
My family. My mother and father. Bunda, Ayah. You’ve brought me into this world and watched
me grow. Cared for me. Thank you. But I feel that the more I grow up the further away you feel like Home. I am trying. I know I am Home to you. I know you are also trying. I don’t want to force needles down your throats even when you said you can handle it because I know for sure you won’t. It is my fault for being “I”. I’m sorry I feel that I need to discard some parts as to not tear this house down. After all you have given me. I am forever grateful. But as a whole I am also selfish and “I” don’t know how to tell you. You have me, almost all of me, and I’ll make sure you always will, because I need to say sorry and the only way I can say the truth in this home is to try my best to keep the version of me you love. Thank you for showering me with a taste of Home. I wish you both happiness.
Say hi to my little sister. She is becoming too much like me. Maybe the closest to Home amongst the people I know. Perhaps. Crybaby little sister. Angry little sister, I hug you once and I think the briefly counted seconds are Home. I know you don’t like letting go but I know you’ll get through it anyways. Goes into everything head first little sister. Please don’t forget to look after yourself. We find and share and learn too many things by smashing our skulls. I find you fascinating. Here is a briefly constant Home.
Speaking of, I find traces of me in friend groups. Friend groups are briefly constant homes resembling a trampoline. I hop on it and it’s fun and exciting and after I’m done I realize that you are not mine. That I can’t keep jumping forever. It comes and goes. I realize there will always be a limit to what I can share. Don’t get me wrong, real friends are the people you can talk to about both the good and the bad things. That is true. But I am telling you the limit to that sharing is the context of “I”. Your friends are not you and it is not their fault. It is not your fault. It’s just the way it’s always been. Company might not be a Home that lasts till the end of Time, but memories live inside you forever. We walk hand-in-hand until we have to let go for other homes.
Finding Home by Breathing In Life to the Lifeless
Maybe this is why humans seek out religion. Faith. The notion that an all-knowing deity understands our struggles and deepest secrets sounds scary, but comforting. It is thrilling yet full of reassurance. Imagine floating in a body of water and letting go, but knowing that you. will. not. fall. Feeling small enough to be engulfed in the inspiring wholeness of certainty. Is that what all of us are looking for? Religion at its core is Home. I have too much faith for someone who tossed away religion and turned away too much to fully come home. At times I still look for little reminders of God in every little corner of this universe because I don’t deserve to see God’s whole face. Maybe in another universe where Faith isn’t politicized I can drown myself in Its waters. But while I am here I hope to treasure this life: so carefully created. Sometimes I wonder what face God is making. I close my eyes for tomorrow and wonder whether the Sun ever gets cold.The bright green of my sheets is the first thing I see when I wake up. I’m trying to see if this rectangular rental can be my Home.
It was a room for three. One bed for each person. One desk, one dresser, blank walls. Just enough
to live in. In my search for Home I’ve started to think of this place as an extension of some part of me. This view from my window only I can see. The previously blank wall I’ve filled up with posters and keepsakes. Postcards, memos, a poem. Little reminders I can’t install completely into memory but will always feel in my Heart. I wish I could install sensory sensations into the soul. Why must there
be a barrier of feeling? It is nearly impossible to reincarnate the outside senses without holding a physical proof. I’m trying to collect every physical proof of existence into this extension of mine;
this room. And even though it is not completely mine I won’t have to deal with it until the start of next month, and the next month, and the next next month. I’ll bury the thought of a borrowed space until I have to draw back my sheets and wake up to greet the day.
The Interlude is A Confusing State To Be In
It is at this point where I am suddenly starting to accept that I’m trying to find Home in too many things, even when I know that this body I live in is my one and only true Home. It’s just that I am scared. Breaking out from denial scares me. I feel that I am not yet ready to be my own Home. I hear my bones’ grow(l)ing ache but my “I” is not ready to be the age my bones ached to be. I’m not ready to grow up. It sounds as if I was born just yesterday.You see, I remember a thing from 7 years. Whenever I did something wrong, my Mother would jokingly scare me by saying that she’d put me back in her belly. Send me back to Heaven, or something. In this hazy interlude I am thinking that would be really nice. To return back to the enclosed bubble of my Mother’s womb. There was no need to think about dividing the self in tiny pieces or extending myself over to a whole new world. Eternal sleep. Sometimes this thought holds me back from growing up. A born human homesick for the womb. Whenever growing up feels like too much, I want to go Home. No one told me there are deadlines you must meet to be a person.
No one told me that to be your own Home you must mature before a certain deadline or you will
be lost forever. The world tells me to take my time but they are also the one forcing me to sort everything out in time.
Growing up is a pain I don’t know how to describe. To grow up physically my parents told me, Sleep. It’s naive to think that I can sleep away the other kind of growing pain. My mind remains stuck in this limbo of pain and weird longing. In this limbo I am a fever dream. I am awake and dreaming of a dream that I am awake and it makes me nauseous. Disorienting and everything is spinning. One moment all you had to worry about was which hair tie you’re going to wear to school tomorrow.
The next, you’re thinking of how to escape your own body. Life goes by in flashes. I find that I can
no longer solve a Grade 8th’s Chemistry problem.
Sharing Yourself and Growing Home
I’m trying to find a solution. Because I know latching on to external things to find Home is in noway sustainable. I wonder how other people does it? How did they grow out into their Home? I am rethinking my definition of Home because I realized within the limbo of self it is hard to integrate
the sensory and the spiritual. Therefore you try to materialize and extend your spiritual home into the space around you. Emphasis on try. Sometimes it does not work. I realize that what I truly needed was to acknowledge my inner spiritual state of Home. What am I? I am a daughter. I am a son. I am also neither. I am a sister, I am a friend. I am a person. I am currently a student. I need to be my own Home and there are many of Me. Many familiar states of me. Gestalt theory states that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The whole is the “I” and I am not near good enough to stick pieces of elements and create a complete life. It is okay to be what you are familiar with so as to not lose yourself while you continue to grow and work out all the other pieces.
I might have to redefine and accept that there is not One Forever Home because the self is ever evolving. One day I am me and the next day I am still me and we both come home to the same body when we sleep yet we are two different states. In each of our states we share different things to those around us and receives different things from those around us. Those around us are also searching. I would like to think we are all experiencing the same pain in different ways. In the stuffiness of a limbo everyone needs to unapologetically accept that we are all searching for homes to come back to and that we are all chasing the invisible deadline. That's all there is left to do.
Once we have embraced all that we are, once we've come into a place of peace, all we can do is share ourselves. Give ourselves away. Give ourselves to as many people as possible. We will no longer be seeking to become complete by rescuing others, because we will realize that we are already complete. We are already complete. We might not see or feel it but we are. I am sorry if I sound preachy, but I am letting this new definition grow on me. I have to lovingly remind myself that I am already whole. I’m also sorry If there are no pictures to accompany my thoughts, I hope this reaches you regardless. Let’s grow in our own terms together. Know that I am rooting for you.
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
OTHER WORKS
IN THIS CATEGORY
︎︎︎ An Answer That’s Truly Mine
(A self-indulgent writing about the courage in being proud of oneself. )
︎︎︎ Thoughts On Art
(A reflexive essay on what
Art truly is at its essence. )
IN THIS CATEGORY
︎︎︎ An Answer That’s Truly Mine
(A self-indulgent writing about the courage in being proud of oneself. )
︎︎︎ Thoughts On Art
(A reflexive essay on what
Art truly is at its essence. )