This column was born in between planes, airports and hotels as we were coming back to Canada from what I considered a home trip – a visit to my family in St. Petersburg.
This piece came to light one sentence at a time as I was falling asleep every minute my head would lean on something, be it husband’s shoulder, an airport bench, a wall or a meal tray on a plane. With delays and layovers, the returning flight took us over 37 hours, and over 20 of them I was sleeping.
It was only after those 20 hours of a total blackout that I noticed an interesting thing. Our vacation was filled with adventures, family and friend get-togethers, tours, little trips and endless visits, but throughout that entire time I haven’t ever slept in or missed anything, moreover, I always had enough energy for all the amazing experiences we had.
But as soon as we left home and got on the first plane, I turned into a balloon poked with a needle. I couldn't stay focused anymore and couldn’t resist the Morpheus' charms. I felt shattered.
There is a saying in Russian that at home even walls help. I tended to turn to it during the difficult life stretches, but I truly felt it through only during this visit (actually only during the return flight).
So briefly waking up from the endless sleep that took over me after leaving home, I started thinking, what was so important about the home that it could keep me going throughout the loaded last few weeks?
I usually have a kind of an adrenaline rush when travelling, so I first assumed that it was the same hormone that kept me going this time. However, the home is something known and trips there are always delightful, but they usually don't involve many discoveries, rather being comforting and full of harmony.
Ever since being a kid, I really thought of home as a castle. It was the place where I was understood and accepted as is; where someone was waiting for me and someone was happy that I was back; where at least for some time, I could forget worries.
Home is one of everybody’s first pictures and one of the first words we say. It’s one of our essences.
It seemed that this started changing in the contemporary world, where many people tend to be on the road more than stay at home and work and sleep at any given place, and home wasn't as important anymore. But this trip made me realize the power of home.
Being a place that I know with every cell of my body, I felt totally different than during any other vacation, and it was very powerful. I didn't need to invest in exploring the immediate world around me, so the known environment of the home grounds allowed me to feel safe and confident, saving a lot of my energy for new adventures.
Research suggests that people also tend to connect home with family. So when we feel lonesome, we want to have at least walls to lean on. Of course, it’s not about the walls, but again about the known details of our lives that make us feel protected and secure. Thus, home is not just about saving energy, but also about recharging us.
Besides, for most of us, it’s important to know that we have a place to come back to. The notion of home is a notion of stability. And stability is something that we often aspire as one of the main components of happiness.
So after a very intense end of December and a loaded program for the St. Petersburg vacation, all of the above charged me and turned me into an Energizer Bunny for whom the sky was the limit, but who froze as soon as the home component was taken out of the equation.
As I (once again) realized how much home means to me and dropped a few tears about (once again) leaving it behind, our trip almost came to an end as we finally made it to Regina and got on the road to Estevan.
We covered the last 200 kilometres, thus finishing the longest day of my year, and all of a sudden, my energy was back. As we drove into Estevan, I felt fresh and excited to be back. I hugged our dogs, opened the doors, made an inhale and at that point, I realized that I now had two real castles.
And there was no better feeling than to come home from home.
