Finding My Place

Sometimes at night, when the kids are asleep and the apartment is still, I walk the halls of 5245 in my mind.  I walk through the kitchen, tugging on the cabinet knobs, trying to remember where I kept the colander and the coffee mugs and the potato masher.  I step out onto the back porch and know exactly where that pesky, creaky floorboard is.  I climb up the back stairs, with that super soft, modern shag carpet that I loved so much, tickling my toes.  Blah!  There's the laundry room painted that ungodly shade of purple.  I peek in the kids' rooms at their toy boxes and stack of books, clean PJs waiting to be stowed in the drawers, random hangers dangling from the closet doorknobs.  And my bedroom with our familiar bed where I would sip coffee in the morning and run down the morning headlines with my friends on the Today Show.

Then I open my eyes and I'm here.

Here is not a bad place.  But here is not home.  Not yet.  I'm interested to see when that transition will take place, when it goes from being "Hong Kong" to "home". 

I remember feeling this way when we first moved to North Carolina.  Everything was so foreign and unfamiliar.  I felt insignificant and lost in the crowd.  I knew no one, no one knew me.  I was lonely and alone.

But I do remember when stopped feeling that way.  It was when I stopped sitting around my house and watching TV.  It was when I stood in my driveway and chatted with my neighbors.  It was when I printed up flyers announcing a book club.  It was when I volunteered my time to a church group.  It was when I built up that network of friends who became like family.

So that's what I'm trying hard to do here.  I'm trying my hardest not to be scared.  To be confident.  To act like I'm in the "in crowd".  To remember lots of names.  To shake lots of hands.  To smile a lot.  To wave a lot.  To be accepting of everyone I meet and hope that they will do the same with me.

I'm looking out tonight on the fabulous lights of Repulse Bay, at all the taxis going by, all the apartments lit up where people are going about their family business.  I'm just one person in this big, big city.  But I'll find my way.  I'll find my place.  I will.  I will.