Going back home

I am going back home, but where is my home?

Where does my sense of belonging live?

I’ve been carrying this question in my pockets.

In a world where moving cities, countries, and languages has become easy, we cross continents… and sometimes lose our own address along the way.

That’s what happened to me.

When I left Brazil in 2005, I thought it would be temporary. Six months. Better English, then back home. I wasn’t running away from my life — it was full. São Paulo was alive with work, friends, family, travel. There was exhaustion, yes. Traffic, urgency, noise. But there was also belonging.

Then England happened.

And with it, the world opened.

New ways of loving, living, building a family. Different rhythms. Different silences. I became someone else. Life didn’t become better — it became different. And that changed everything.

That’s when I realized: even though I was born in a big city, my body longed for nature. My heart wanted small communities. Streets you can walk. A “hello” to the fruit lady. A nod to the people you see every day.

Strangely, it was the life my mother once knew before the big city. Simple and hard — ten siblings in a small house — but full of connection, neighbors, presence. A life where people knew each other by name.

And I realized that’s what I was searching for.

A simple life. An easier life. A more alive life.

With space, affection, and human connection.

And the question came back, deeper this time:

Where is my home?

After 21 years away from Brazil, I’ve learned that home is not a place on the map. It’s a feeling. It’s where we build community. Where we are seen. Where we belong.

But there are moments when the body asks for ground.

Now, going through a divorce, in a country that is still new to me, without deep roots, my home calls me by its old name.

Today, my home is Brazil.

More precisely, my mother’s house — where I arrived a few weeks ago.

And for a moment, everything went silent.

As if the world was saying:

You’ve arrived.