My Search for Home (continued)

I have always felt like a child of the world;

too restless to stay in one place.

Not when the world had so much to offer,

so much too be seen and experienced.

Why stay?

There is a quote from one of my favourite fantasy books

'Beautiful Creatures' by Kami Garcia amd Margaret Stohl.

A friend of mine got me the book as a gift the year it got released,

in 2009, which coincidently was the year I left home.

There is this line in the first chapter:

“There were only two kinds of people in our town.

The stupid and the stuck.

The ones who are bound to stay or too dumb to go.

Everyone else finds a way out.”

It resonated with me, how Ethan Wate felt about Gatlin his

hometown, was similar to how I, for a long time, felt about Durban.

It seems harsh and unfair to call people stupid or stuck, with no way out.

But it is less about everyone else, more about myself and how I felt;

felt it would be stupid of me to stay in my very own Gatlin.

I'd be dumb to stay.

So, I left and for over a decade I floated,

blown about like tumbleweed from one place to another.

"Finding my way out" as Ethan says, but only to realise

that the old and burned exit sign I saw every time I left home

was actually beckoning me to stay.

To stay, just a little longer and give this place a chance,

to truly see it's beauty and experience all it has to offer.

The world is still there, my love for travelling and experiencing different

places and cultures has not diminished in any way; but I won't be doing it

with the same restlessness that made me reckless.

Running from the very place I needed the most.

Home.

So, my beautiful creatures - I am coming home.

Always found the cover art for this book amazing.