Missing Home ...

I was reading through Blur Ting's blog, The day flew by so fast it was a blur a few days back and it got me thinking about something. You see, Blur Ting or BT as she is known recently bought an apartment of her own and moved out from the family home where she has been staying with her kids for quite a while. And they kinda felt sad and missed the old place when they moved out. A clear case of homesickness.

Now as I said, that got me to thinking about my situation. Now while BT and her kids have the option of going back home whenever they feel homesick, I do not actually have such an option cos I just realized that I don't really have a family home or even a hometown to go back to.

I was born in the city and have lived here all my life, well except for a few years when I was between the ages of 3-6 years old where I lived in a small seaside town called Port Dickson cos my dad used to work in the then National Electricity Board was stationed there. I do have memories of that place but I don't really recall very much of it, save for certain ghost stories ... hehehe ... Ever since then I've been a city kid.

After the age of 6, we moved back to the city or rather my mom and me did, cos my parents were in the midst of a separation and mom took me and moved in with my grandma in the city. A huge chunk of my time (between the ages of 6-24 years old) was spent growing up in this neat little small community. In fact some of my best and most fondest memories came from there.

It wasn't really a huge mansion or anything but I would consider it pretty big as we had a big family living under one roof. My grandparents, my mom her sis and husband, another two of her brothers and us six kids (my cousins), totaling thirteen people in all. Like I said, we had a huge family. And as huge families go, we had our disagreements and all, good times and bad times but just like all families, we stuck together no matter what. Well, at least until everyone grew up and started leading lives of our own.


That home was a place where I had learned my growing up lessons in life. It was a place I would consider my 'hometown' so to speak. After the age of 24 or 25, I can't really remember exactly, I wanted my independence and I moved out of the family house to rent a place of my own. But just like BT, I did miss the place when I was away from it. I felt a heart wrenching emptiness cos I was so used to the way of life there and even though I had my freedom it was not the same.

But the good thing was, the family home wasn't all that far from my new place and I used to always head home after work for a bit to hang around and then head back to my own place. Then a few years later, with the passing of my grandfather, my mom, uncles and aunt along with my cousins decided to move out of there. They were pretty affected by my grandfather's death and the place didn't seem the same anymore without both grandma and grandpa there anymore.

And that was when I become a 'hometownless' person. I was miserable for a time with the knowledge that if I wanted to go back home after work or even on weekends, I wouldn't able to do it any longer. I missed the old neighbourhood. Badly!

Sure, I could just take a drive there anytime I wanted to but it wouldn't be the same. I could never step foot in the house I practically grew up in anymore. I couldn't walk around its front yard or even sit in the porch and chit chat with my cousins anymore (not that we chit chatted a lot mind you). Sure, I could always go over to the new place they moved to but it somehow is just not the same.

Even though in time I got over the fact that I could never go 'home', I could never and will never forget the old place. As much as I like the place I live in now, it just doesn't have the character the old place back home had. Behind every tree, behind every bush, behind every stone there would be a story to tell. The history of that place was so deep that sometimes I get so melancholic just thinking about the old place.

You know, sometimes I feel sad when people, especially during festivals and holidays happily announcing that they're going to 'balik kampung' (going back to their hometowns ... that's as best as I can translate it). I would have no where to 'balik kampung' too. Even wifey has a hometown she can go back to. For me, this place is my only home. And even then it can never replace the old place I grew up in. I just hope that maybe one day my kids can look at this place as some place they would miss later in life and have memories of their own to cherish.

Okay, enough of reminiscing about old times, it's late already and I'm pretty sleepy but I still have to check out this thing on franchise opportunities that I've kept in the back burner for quite sometime now. I need the money seeing as how I just spent some on my 'ever-dependable' car!
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