Home. The word has so many different meanings for so many people. It’s challenging if you’ve lived in more than one place and downright confusing if you’re an immigrant, like me. Though my mother gave birth to me in Georgetown, Guyana, we moved to Trinidad when I was five, and I spent most of my formative years in that country. At sixteen and a half, I headed off the college to the University of Guelph in Canada. There, I met and married my Dutch-born husband. We lived in various parts of Canada for over seven years before moving to Trinidad.

My kids were born in Trinidad and Tobago and we spent fourteen incredible years there before, once again, changing countries. To date, we’ve lived in Florida for thirteen years. As I write this blog, I am back home.So where is home? I’ve come to believe it’s where your parents lived during your formative years. I am blessed to have my mother with me still, but I wonder if Trinidad will still be home when the inevitable happens.

My three boys are divided on the subject. They spent every summer while we were in Florida in Trinidad. They have friends here as do we, yet, for them home is Florida. And as for my poor hubby, he calls both Canada and Trinidad home. Truth be told, he’s way more Trinidadian than I’ll ever be. He took to Trini like a duck to water.

I haven’t been back to Trinidad in ten years and the changes are incredible. The country is not the one I remember and I feel like a stranger. So, have I come home? Or is that definition changing?

Where’s your home?

Cheers,

Jianne

P.S. The pic is of the view from my mom’s home and the house where I lived in my early