Have you ever heard the Chantal Kerviazik song, ‘It Feels Like Home’? If you listen to the full song, it’s actually a love song, but I tend to just focus on the chorus:

“It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I’m all the way back where I come from
It feels like home to me, it feels like home to me
It feels like I’m all the way back where I belong”

Something goes funny in my ‘feels’ when I hear that. Especially when I know I’m on my way to visit home. It’s that flutter of familiarity and excitement that I get when the airplane starts descending after a long overseas journey, or as one of the authors in Once Upon an Expat reminded me, it’s that moment when the pilot says, “For those of you who are visiting us, we welcome you to Canada. And for those of you who are Canadian, welcome home.” Flip-flop goes my stomach and goosebumps shiver through me at the words, ‘welcome home’! It’s like I’m officially given my first warm Canadian hug. These are my people. I belong here!

This year is an extra special one because we’re moving(…again) and before we hit our new home I will have the opportunity to visit, in three months, all the places I’ve ever considered home.

With my husband off to Congo checking out our next posting, my daughters and I will embark on our journey: first, travelling 12,262 km to the SW of France, our daughter’s home, where we spent the last four years. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, for us, this truly does feel like home because it’s where we became a family and it’s the longest we’ve ever stayed in one place since I met my husband. Our family roots were planted in the SW of France.

Once we’re done visiting the smiling faces we’ve missed, we’ll fly up a quick 795 km to Paris, where my husband and I spent a year when we started our expat adventure. It’s where I learned French, where I got used to begin an expat, and where I had to try and rebuild myself for the first time as an adult.  We’ll savour cheese and baguette while I drink wine and we picnic under the Eiffel Tower. A quick bisous with my husband as he swings through the city of lights and us gals will be off again, 7,370km over the Atlantic to visit another home.

Our last night living in Paris.

Calgary. The place I sewed my wild oats; where I drowned my twenties in cheap wine and late night dance parties with some of the greatest friends a girl could ask for. It’s also the place where I started my career…Well, in hindsight, started and ended 8 years later. I loved that city, and it loved me back; pointing me in the direction of my husband: the guy who didn’t have a hint of an accent to give away that English wasn’t his first language and looked like he spent all his time in the gym. How surprised was I to find that he was actually a francophone who was more passionate about history and science that he was about weights. Who knew. Together we made our home Calgary, even thought it was short and sweet.

From there we’ll fly east, 2,038km, to my first home, Thunder Bay, Ontario. Where I spent the initial 22 years of my life. I’ll fill up on soul-food at a family reunion and my weight-lifting-francophone will be joining us via Indonesia-Congo-Paris-Indonesia-Calgary(helloooooo frequent flyer points!) Lake Superior is going to feel extra cold after a year of living one degree off the equator.

2,346 more km to the east will take us to my husband’s home in norther New Brunswick, where people will curiously wonder why the anglophone from Thunder Bay has a French accent straight out of the land of wine and cheese.

Crossing back over the Atlantic, about 5,000 km will have us doing a bit more visiting in France and a final 7,692 km will drop us gently at the door step of our new home, in Pointe Noire, Congo.

That’s a lot of homes!

That’s 37,503 km of kids bums in airplane seats, which is just a bit shy of the circumference of the planet.

This is where I want to get all mushy and gush about how blessed I am to have so many people and places that I love. But I’ll stop, and leave you with a favourite chorus that says it perfectly.

Wish me luck on our adventure. I’m sure there will be stories to tell!

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