For the Love of a Country

Day 267 – Sometimes you have to deprive yourself of something in order to fully appreciate it. It donned on me today that this holds truth even for something as big as a country. I chose at the age of 30 to leave my homeland and try to establish my life elsewhere. I learned the language really well, for 20 years I barely read in my own language, I tried to assimilate as much as I could. But as time passed the first cracks started to appear. “A man is a mold of his homeland” say the sages and it is so true. Nothing can touch my heart as a sunset over the sea here in my country. There is nothing like the blossom of the almond trees here in late winter, like the blue sky after the rain, like a sunrise over the bay that I keep taking pictures every few days. I saw many sunrises and sunsets in my adopted country, but nothing ever touched my soul as the same sights in my homeland. It so close and personal, it gets under my skin. I am totally in love with my country. I look outside and I can see that not everything is peachy, I can see the corruption and the short temper, the brashness of the people; I can see that we live on the edge of a volcano that can erupt at any moment and will claim so many young lives before it will cease again. And yet, through it all, or maybe despite all that, I love my country, I love every moment I am here and all those faults are just part of what my country is and I love it faults and all. I wake up every morning happy to be here and today I finally got it, I am a mold of my country. I love its landscapes and its vegetation, I breath to the same rhythm of it all. This is the only place I’ll ever be at home. I am back to my language, dreaming and writing in the only language that will ever be really mine. I had to be 22 years abroad in order to fully understand what this country, this place, and the wonderful people around me mean for me.

I am thankful beyond words for this understanding. I am thankful for the love I feel every day to my country and its people. I am thankful for the years I spent abroad because they built that love and connection in me. I am so very thankful to be here. For the miracles that had to happen for me to find my way here after so many years abroad. I am thankful to all my wonderful friends and to all the complete strangers who extended a hand, a smile, a good word; that made my integration back here so easy and meaningful. I am thankful I can fall in love with it again every single day.