To Find a Home

Artwork by Mahrukh Khizar 

by Janan Sehr Mir

People often state that no place feels like home. Rightly so but there are some people who have seldom felt like they are at home when they reside in that said space. Homes, being the epicentre of harmony, the entrenched notion of one’s roots, the symbol of assurity for always having a space to call one’s own. Then again, for some the same space is the caricature for all the anxieties that they have had to assume. the only thing they understand, comprehend and recognize are those patterns of anxiety. A building with narrow, unchanged nooks and corners. Coupled with minds that are not prone and unaccustomed to change as well. The walls prohibiting the will to breathe openly, a place one wishes to seek refuge from constantly. The crippling numbness of leaving home only because the return to it being inevitable. the unsettling pinch in the gut as the day has passed and the house labelled as yours becomes visible on the street because the shortlived refuge decides to end. The urge for the distance to extend miraculously or somehow the need to go back vanishing. the vicious, self-taught pattern of counting hours, minutes, second and milliseconds if one knows how to. of making it certain that no one identifies that you are happy when you return. to constantly monitor your demeanor. to remember that you are different outside of it and altered when you enter the space again. Often contemplating that whether the building labelled as the home is cursed or the people living inside it are. To digest the incomprehensible contradiction of the home being the safest place but only associating emotions that one tries to do away with. The space giving rise to the thought of it not being your own, of making you ponder over the possibility of creating another home. As one finds the feeling of being at home in relation to being able to laugh, breathe and cry wholely in situations and in people, the need to constantly gauge your own self is put aside. to supervise your disposition is put to a halt. The absence of those people makes one homesick. With that, I understand that I may not have a home by birth but I have found it in women who I proudly call mine. the only thing I’m grateful for these days- the sisterhood I’m a part of. which instills hope and belief for our collective and individual experiences giving voice to others for articulating their own.

Bio

Janan is currently majoring in Liberal Studies and through that process, she has been able to meet her sisters by choice who helped her identify that there is so much to unlearn and that there is no feeling better than womxn coming together. one fine day, Janan will be doing something that she has always wanted to do. not sure what that is. only su