There’s No Place Like Home

Every new beginning is marked with a touch of sadness, because it also signifies the end of something else.

Joy and I are about to embark on a grand adventure. In the early hours of tomorrow morning, we’ll be flying to Japan, where we’ll be travelling through a beautiful country together, me running, her cycling, making videos about our journey and the people we meet. This experience will change our lives. It’s an exciting time filled with hope. 

But at the same time, today is the final day in our first place together. We’ve lived here since the start of January, and we’ve made it our home. We won’t be following our usual little routines, I won’t be woken up with a cup of tea each morning, we won’t wander around to our usual coffee spot, and we won’t be spending the weekends playing with my 3-year-old nephew.

I’ll miss that.

While neither Joy nor I really settled in Hanoi, and we never felt like it would be our forever home, it was our home. It gave us a place to travel from. This year we’ve visited Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Vientiane, Vang Vieng, and Kunming. We’ve managed to spend more time with my sister here in Hanoi, and visited China to spend time with Joy’s family, too. While these last few months have been a lot of work, they’ve also provided a lot of wonderful memories. 

But for now, it’s time to say goodbye to Vietnam. 

Who knows where we’ll settle? Perhaps we’ll find a little spot in Japan to make our own. But for now, we have no long-term place to call our own. Instead, we’ll be carrying our home with us. Some nights we might find a hotel, others we might enjoy the hospitality of others, but most often we’ll be pitching our little tent, from which we can watch the autumn night sky and connect with the world around us. For some, it’s not much, but for us, it will be our home. 

Home is where we make it, and we’ll be making it with each and every step.