moving out and finding home

Earlier this month, I moved out of Bali.

In the span of 24 hours, I had dinner with my closest friend there, had one last meal at my favorite pub, and packed the last few things I had into two duffle bags. Like all things in my life, I romanticized my ride from the airport into town. Restaurants where I had spent many nights with friends, roads that had been part of my daily routine, sights and scenes that had been ingrained into my brain.

It won't be my last time in Bali, I'm sure. But there's a time where a place you called home (even for a few months) no longer becomes your home - and for some, that can happen multiple times in your life. You build a life for so many months or years somewhere - you establish routines and habits, meet new people that become your friends, find places where you become a regular. And then it comes to an end.

Either you make the decision that you've had enough of a place, or life pushes you to relocate somew
else, but it always looks the same. You book your flight tickets, start packing up your bags, say goodbye to the places and people who at one point you would see every day, and start anew.

Maybe this is an experience that becomes less melancholic as you get older. The vast majority of people will experience moving out and moving on, whether it be for school, or for a job, or for a person, or because a place no longer feels like home anymore.

But for me, it's still an experience that is very melancholic and roman- ticized. As I winded through the streets of Kuta and Seminyak, and I thought about leaving this place I called home, I started to wonder:

What's home to me a
See, right now, "home" is a gray area for me.

Is it the place I was born? Canberra doesn't really seem like a place I can call home.

Is it the place my parents live? Jogja is nice, but it's my parent's home much more than it is my home.

Is it the place I'm at right now? Jakarta has its charms, but to this day I still feel like a tourist-my friends recently chuckled when I couldn't tell the difference between Kelapa Gading and Gading Serpong.

For the past two years, 'home' has been more of a fluid concept than a concrete idea. Last year, I spent more nights in a hotel room or an Airbnb than I did in my room in Jakarta (or even my room in my parent's
I look at most of my friends, and for them, home is quite clear. The city they were born is the city their par- ents live in and the city where they work today. I sit in conversations with my friends as they discuss buying a house on the outskirts of Jakarta, or their plans to buy land in Bali, and while I listen intently (cause you never know what you're going to learn), a part of me is disengaged. A part of me has not yet grasped how someone can be confident enough that they will live somewhere for the rest of their lives and make the conscious choice to settle somewhere forever.

I'd like to have a home. I'd like for the word home to evoke something in me, to remind me of a place, to call up a long-forgotten memory.

When I hear the word 'home' now, I just think of a house. Not a par
ular house, not the house I grew up in, or my current place, or my room in Bali. Just a house. An unassum- ing house, like the one in Up (all time best Pixar movie by the way).

The yard is trimmed, but the lights are turned off. There isn't any activ- ity inside - no signs of life, no signs of people there yet. No indication of which city it's in, or what chairs decorate the living room.

A house is not a home.

But as my Gojek driver neared my destination, I realized that maybe not knowing where 'home' is a priv- ilege. Maybe 'home' doesn't have to be one place for now.

Home can be my family, a place that I can always come back to and know that there will be someone to watch
Home can be my friends, people I can count on to enjoy a nice dinner with and a fun night out.

Home might just be a generic house for now, but maybe it's the journey to find all the pieces that make it all worth it.

In every city I go to, I get to see whether the house will fit in or not. Over time, I'll add some more dec- orations to the yard. Find someone who will be sitting in the big win- dow peeking into the living room. Add some kids running around the kitchen, or lazing in front of the TV playing the games I played growing up. The lights are on and blazing, welcoming me in.

A house may not be a home. But it will be one day.

For now, I'll be moving out and moving in. But I'll take a little bitTV with.tic- house).nyway?here