Honoring What I Call Home While Thriving.

At one point, I realized I did not have to choose between who I was and what I was becoming. For years, I fought silently inside of myself, torn between my desire to adapt to my new surroundings and my attachment to the one I had grown up in. But I began to realize that accepting one did not entail giving up the other. I might appreciate either one. I may be both.

My aspirations, values, and sense of belonging first evolved in Rwanda and Uganda, where my heart beats. They taught me what it is to belong, to keep going, and to stand tall even in life’s seeming instability. By contrast, America showed me how to reinvent myself, how to start from scratch, push past my boundaries, and carry it out. It is to find the power of my own voice. Years of reflection finally helped me see that wholeness is not about reverting to who I was before the trip, but about accepting all that I’ve become along the way. The collaboration of civilizations, events, achievements, and even setbacks builds me whole.

That knowledge provides a deep, persistent calm deriving from no longer trying to demonstrate your worth to either world. You are just that. In your tongue, in your laughter, in the way you show empathy, and in the courage that has carried you through every phase of your life, life carries your home along.

I have grown to proudly embrace my ancestry as a crown rather than as a weight. Not a fragment of her, I am presently a more whole form of the girl who left home. Every country I have lived in, every lesson I have learnt, every tear I have cried have all helped to weave the tapestry of my growth. I have found the freedom to grow in that perfection, not by ignoring my history but by letting it coexist quietly with my now.