My key turned in the lock and the door creaked open, stiff from months of neglect. I stepped over the threshold, dumping my back pack on the floor. Dust rose up from the impact and swirled lazily through the air, the larger particles catching the sunlIght streaming through the window.

I cast my eye around the apartment, checking to see what had changed. Would I even notice any changes after a year away? Had there always been that black scuff mark by the lounge skirting board? Had I really hung the pictures that crookedly, or had they been disturbed from their fastenings by a breeze, an earthquake, a person?

It wasn’t like the movies; I didn’t fall to the ground, snow-angelling through the dust, crying “I’m home! I’m home!” I didn’t rush to my possessions, turning them over in my hand, exclaiming how much I missed them or how good it was to sit on my own couch again, flop down on my own bed again.

In fact, I felt no attachment or affection at all. It could have been anyone’s apartment, save for the framed photo of me and Dad sitting on the bookshelf. It’s funny what home means to you.

Was this my home? Or was home that small mountain village in Switzerland, where I lived for 6 glorious months, made connections with so many people, who I was still in touch with months later? Was home Turkey, where I spent 3 weeks staying in town after town, village after village, soaking up the sights and sounds, gorging myself on fresh, flavourful food?

My soul belonged in those memories, those places, those people. They were home. This was a dusty, empty apartment, loudly reminding me of what I was missing, what I had left. And a preview of the monotonous life that was to resume, now that I had crossed the threshold. Home.