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Journaling: Welcome Home
A personal piece on why these two words mean so much to me right now.
“Welcome home.”
I’ve heard these words multiple times in the last week.
Friends. My adopted family. Colleagues. People I’ve just met.
The first to utter this phrase to me was the immigration officer who checked my Dutch passport after I landed at Schiphol.
He was gruff yet friendly. I opened with a goedemiddag, pleased that I remembered what time of day it was despite a long journey.
“Goedemiddag,” he responded and took my passport. “Where have you been?”
“Australia and the US.”
He nodded, scanned the passport, checked the scan, and handed it back to me.
“Welkom thuis.”
Welcome home. There was something so brilliantly indifferent about this — so casual.
He didn’t need me to fill in on how I’d lived with my Mum for a while in Australia as I navigated the excruciatingly long visa process to get the US, or how my Dad’s dementia developed during my stay. He had no interest in knowing how I never found my grounding in California, despite the best of intentions and efforts. He didn’t ask me to explain why I was returning, or give the…
