Belonging but Leaving

When I left 
I didn’t cry.
I avoided eye contact 
to stop the emotions from coming out.
I made it past security
Past the glass wall 
behind which silhouettes still waved
Only then did I let the tears fall. 
They didn’t stop. 
Not even at passport control,
he looked at me with the
sympathy seeing tears creates 
looked down at my passport and smiled
“hey, don’t cry, you’re going home!” 

If only you knew the complexity of that sentence,
dear passport control guy. 
There was no point to explain it to him, though,
so I let the moment pass by. 

It’s a weird thing
Belonging. 
Somehow you think 
it will apply forever. 
But one day you are leaving. 
Leaving home to go home. 
The new home, which was technically an old home.
From the in between home that I thought 
would be my forever home.

They can’t both be home
Not exactly.
Or maybe they are home to different versions of me.

Cape Town;
my home where I felt Finnish.
Helsinki;
my home where I felt 
South African. 
Finland; 
The place where I can breathe
Western Cape;
the place that still has some hold over me. 
It makes no sense. 
I belong wherever I am not
My identity is built on being a foreigner.
Maybe that is why i decided that I could not stay there.
After finishing high school,
and volunteering a gap year,
If I also started a degree,
I would never leave.
I had to spread my wings a bit
Test out the other versions of me.

It should have been natural to return to Finland.
it is the country of my origin
it has been the most constant country of my life
the one we return to again and again.
But maybe that was just it.
I had always only been visiting
of this I was sort of proud.
But now I was supposed to return
to my Finnish roots.
Even though they had always been underground.