A Goodbye to Home
Two years ago, at the start of my master’s program, I was asked to write a farewell to home. Here’s what came out.
So, I’m tasked with saying goodbye to you. I sit on my dining table — new, raw, untouched, unscathed, unscarred, housed in the apartment my family moved into away from Jordan struggling to write a farewell to you. My struggle is colored with complicated emotions because when you think of home, you think of the question: “Where are you from?”
So, Jordan, you are the place I grew up in. You are the passport I hold. You are the country that housed me. You are where I went to school. You are where I need to go when I need teta. You are the place that took my grandparents in from Palestine which means you come after the hyphen when I answer the question of where I’m from.
Yet, my fingertips struggle to rush to the letters h-o-m-e because I find myself unable to reconcile romanticized feelings of home with the notion of country as home. You know me. I’m not a patriot. Yes, I’ve been disappointed by you countless times. While you’ve taken in millions of refugees, I still believe you could do better. While you keep people safe from bombs and bullets, you make it very hard for families to put bread on the table. But you’re not alone and you’re not the only one. Here I am, living in New York city, with her sparkling lights and unapologetic claim to unforgiving beauty, overwhelming creativity, tireless temptations, and inspiration. It is the city that never sleeps. But, it literally does not sleep. Thousands and thousands of people are homeless. Every corner I tread someone is deeply struggling. Someone is in pain. Someone is being deported while a family is being torn apart. Someone is being attacked for wearing the hijab while an innocent life is being taken away simply because of the color of their skin. The struggle for gender equality is drenched in the tired soils of our Earth. There’s pain in every corner of this world. But you, Jordan, should not be reduced to your political being. Why, though, is it always? Why do I not think about your people — my people. Their voices, their stories, their art, their truth and their pain because they are home. Right? But, being here, in the U.S., thinking of Jordan as home seems more of a political statement than a truth.
Writing a goodbye to you is a difficult task.
So, here’s what I learned. Here’s my confession to you: I struggle to write a goodbye to home because I think I missed the true meaning of home. I wasn’t asked to write a farewell to my country. I was asked to write a farewell to home. Caught between my burden of representation and sticking to a narrative I have constructed for myself, I missed the point. So, I think of my house. The actual place I grew up in, the walls that housed me, sheltered me, allowed me to breathe, cry, grow, heal, create and love was dissolving into nothing but memories. I think of the house that was nestled between the King Hussein Mosque and the awkward hues of green terrains that surrounded it. I think of the beige concrete that my parents built from scratch. I think of the walls that stood tall and formidable as my grounding and my formation. I think of the space that was always ready to embrace me anytime I needed to go back. What I have realized is that there is a very thin line between truth(s) and narratives. These past few months, I have bounced between these spaces. As I navigate a minuscule kind of displacement, I carry you — home — inside me but it’s deeply wounding to say goodbye to you. What does it mean to say goodbye to a place? Does that mean I’m not returning? Is it simply a form of closure to be able to start anew in a different place? Do we even need to start a new?
