It was graduation checklist. You checked your name, your major, and your hometown for the commencement's program in May. That's when I told the admin people I wanted my hometown left blank. They were very compliant, a little amused, and it was settled. I didn't think it would be hard. It was a deliberate choice I had carefully spent months considering. Yet walking out of that hall back into the snow, I completely broke down. I walked back to my house unable to stop crying. I walked past my housemates to my room, sat on the floor, and just kept crying. I didn't even know why, but I thought of Shawnee, Spartanburg, Rochester, Medford, Shantou, Nairobi, Limuru, Addia Ababa, Harare, Lusaka, Paris, Islamabad, Bath, Harrisonburg, Washington DC...
It's hard not knowing where you're from. There isn't one place on earth that claims me. I know I'm deeply loved by people in many places, but I don't have a home. I've gone back and forth over the course my higher education, struggling to find an answer...and I didn't. I'm a global nomad. The act of telling the world at that symbolic event that I don't have a home was unexpectedly painful and surprisingly healing.
I kept comparing graduation to my idea of a wedding. I don't know if I'll ever get married, and I don't really care, and that's not really the point either. But I marched my way through 15 years of education, 14 different homes and some very bad classes to come out the proudest owner of a Bachelor's degree, with high honors. May 2, 2010 was my glory day, ugly cap and gown aside. It's my most impressive achievement, and to the world, on that day, I said, I'm a global nomad.
I'm a global nomad. On May 2, 2010 I confessed that to the world and I confess it still. I don't know where I'm coming from and honestly, I don't know where I'm going. (I'm going to Cambodia next but that's not the point either.) Instead, I live this truth that I discovered and wholeheartedly believe....that happiness, joy and peace and be found anywhere.
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