The Places We Carry
Updated: 2 days ago
There are places we come from that still live in us,
even when we no longer belong to them in the same way.
I've been thinking a lot about my ancestors these last few years.
About the movement and lives of my lineage.
About the lands they left.
The lands they arrived on.
The stories carried forward, and the stories that were never ours to carry.
About all the ways a place can shape you.
The things it gives you, the things you inherit without choosing,
the things you carry long after you've left.
And about how a place can shape you without being where you're meant to stay.
I came back to a place I once called home and found myself looking at it differently.
Not with rejection. Not even with sadness, exactly.
Just with the quiet knowing that I had already moved on.
That something in me had changed.
That what once felt like home could still be part of me without being where I needed to return.
Maybe belonging isn't always as straightforward as knowing where we come from or deciding where we want to go.
Maybe we can belong to a place in ways that change over time.
We can carry it with us without needing to recreate it. We can honour what came before without being bound to follow the same path.
Sometimes it's just about following the life that's asking to be lived.
We take what shaped us. We honour what came before. We release what no longer fits.
And we keep moving.
Not always knowing where we're going.
Just trusting that there is something in us that knows.
Comments