I see the white Tesla turn the corner and begin collecting my luggage so it can be placed into the boot. The driver, a smart middle-aged gentleman, is pleasant and makes room to fit both pieces strategically among his belongings. I get into the vehicle and exchange pleasant words about the unusually warm weather here in London. While he finishes a call, I text my cousin to tell her I’m on my way to the airport. 

Ahmad is from Lebanon. He looks at me through the rear-view mirror to ask where I’m headed for my holiday, and I laugh.  I remind him he picked me up from a hotel and then end with, “I’m going home.” His cute smile is followed by another question, “So where’s home? Because you seem like you’re from around here.”

I’m silent for a minute, mainly to digest how many times I’ve changed the place I call home. “I am in fact from here, but I live elsewhere now,” I add. My statement intrigues him more.As I grab my seatbelt to get buckled in, I contemplate, had I had a seatbelt just like this throughout my life, perhaps I would have been safer. Instead of always trying to tackle life, I could have played it safe. But then I would not have ventured into new territory. 

My thoughts get disrupted, “Why so far away?” Ahmad asks, I tell him, I wanted a fresh start, “I like it there” I reply. He tells me that while he doesn’t know me, he can tell I’m happy, so it must be a good decision. “I am happy,” I tell myself. It’s the happiest I’ve been, the most peaceful my life has been, and although I miss my origins and the few people I have to travel to meet. I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

This is the third time in my life, I have made a home in a foreign place. For some, I’m brave, and for others, I should have stayed put. While people were speculating, I realized in my midlife, home is where my peace lay and where I gained freedom. 

I grew up in the suburbs of a small town in England, where the rows of brick houses seemed anything but appealing. Lamp posts lined the street, and everyone’s back garden was manicured to their own tastes. I grew accustomed to travelling on foot in the rain and wind. I played with all the children on my street; I lived a simple childhood. Everything was so much easier and simpler then. We didn’t know what stress was and what adulting entailed. We lived for fun, and it cost nothing but time.

In my late teenage years, I moved to what was then considered the world’s superpower, the US of A. I made a home near the capital and lived a different lifestyle from that of my humble beginnings. I drove amongst the sedans on the open freeways, experienced all four seasons in the extreme. I grew up quickly, and Distance set in; marriage kept me apart from loved ones, work chained me, and children took up my life.  and gave birth to a family and built an empire. I became engulfed in the rat race.

And then in my midlife, I left that life and moved away to another metropolitan city. One where the sun never forgets to shine. The vibrancy here showed me what life was really about. It taught me to slow down, live a little, and become someone I was meant to be. I became wiser, more confident, and secure; I found solidarity here next to the ocean I still wish my loved ones were close, but then I’d miss out on the excitement, traveling, catching up, and taking in the very essence of rekindling and being missed. 

Ahmad seemed very interested in my being single so late in life. Our conversation was geared towards the irrational decisions we make in our younger days. “I don’t regret anything,” I tell him. “I learned a lot from my life, and I refuse to say my experiences were mistakes.” My life is simple now, but for Ahmad, I was living some kind of adventure. I listen as he talks about me from the very little he knows, his reasoning of how bold he thinks I am. 

My life took me full circle. At one point, I felt as if I had lived an entire lifetime. Coming back to a place I had left so many years ago overwhelmed me with memories, a lot of them sad. I reminisced about my childhood. It’s funny how time changes a place. Now I’m in a home where I wish I had more time, because I have so much more of life to experience. “My home is where I can be the best version of myself,” I tell him. Ahmad shares his family life, and I tell him I’m jealous; he tells me he wishes he had my freedom. I remind him, “To gain something, we have to give up something, and the grass is always greener where you water it.” 

As I said goodbye, he wished me the best of luck. I joke and tell him I’m only going home, he replies, “Not all of us have a happy home to go to, you have taught me a lot in one car ride, keep smiling, and a little good wish never hurt anyone .”