“They” say “you can always go home”, they are probably right as that’s one of my favourite sayings. Except sometimes it’s not that easy, sometimes you simply can’t go back home because you have no home to go back to.

Maybe I misunderstand the concept of home; is it the house you grew up in, a place where family lives or that place where you feel you belong?

The house I “grew” up in technically doesn’t exist, I can’t pinpoint a specific location where family is and I certainly don’t feel like I belong in that place where I’m supposed to belong.

I’ve rediscovered a lot of great old friends lately; and some that I would have liked to remain undiscovered, some remind me of home. A home I sometimes desperately want to forget.

My friend D is a believer in recreating good memories out of the bad – I don’t always quite understand how that works. Returning to the place of bad memories to rebuild happier ones seems like something that only works in theory.

There’s also a saying about home being where the heart is, my heart is in a rickety house off the beaten path few kilometres from the most glorious beach in the world on a very remote island, but that’s not really my home.

I have a thing (with songs) where certain songs are linked to certain memories so hearing these particular songs will take me back to these instances in my life. Sometimes when the memories are unpleasant I play the song over and over again until get through the emotions of that difficult time. I’m a big proponent for working through emotions; I never been one to sweep the ugliness of the past away and pretend it never happened – I don’t have the luxury of doing that for the sake of my sanity. But there are days when I tend to look back on the past as if it were someone else’s life or a dream.

Sometimes I imagine going back “home” to live happier memories, it would probably be easy but then I consider how true it is when they also say: “Humans, not places make memories”.

My co-worker’s son left for Ghana yesterday, I’m afraid I might have convinced him to go to a place that only exists in my head. I spoke from happier memories, of a place that I never got a chance to get to know. Of a culture that I only understood as an adult, and a people with an overwhelming pride in their heritage.

Maybe I’ve read too much into this home business than it really is.