Where Is My Home?
Quickly, I realized that I didn’t feel as settled and happy being back “home” as I thought I would. Of course, I was thrilled to be back with my husband, our family reunited and complete.
But, despite having my own space again after sharing a small room at my in-laws’ house and being surrounded by everything familiar and comfortable, I was not at ease.
I began having anxiety and feelings of nausea as I watched my youngest child, who in Morocco was attending school and learning so much, sit home day after day because she was too young to attend Kindergarten in the States.
I began to feel sick to my stomach as I saw my children forgetting all they had learned in Morocco. I watched helplessly as all this went on, and I was filled with regret and worry that I had made the wrong decision.
There was even a particularly bad incident, which further fueled my regret and made me question my choices. Soon after we returned home, I had a verbal altercation with a woman at a playground who I found yelling at my son for no tangible reason.
She simply said she did not want my son to play with her son and went on to call him a string of horrible names.
I was so upset and hurt, and out of anger and blind rage, I said some nasty things to this woman in return. What she said to me next both turned my stomach and gave me serious pause.
Looking only at my hijab and assuming I was a foreigner, she yelled at me, saying, “Go back to my own country“.
This is something I’ve never been told since I converted to Islam nearly eight years ago. The irony of her cruel words was not lost on me.
Should I go back to my own country, to Morocco? Was Marrakech, Morocco, my true home and was that why my very spirit seemed to be rebelling against being back in the States, making me physically ill?
My close friend and Muslim convert Elizabeth Johnson is planning on moving to Casablanca, Morocco, with her two small daughters while her husband remains in America to complete his university degree.
She said she experienced similar feelings when deciding to make her life in Morocco rather than raise her girls in the United States while her Moroccan husband finished school.
“I asked myself, ‘Do I see myself here in 10 years? and the answer is NO; so what am I waiting for?’” Johnson said, adding that her husband will do his best to visit her and the girls during semester breaks.
She admits the long separation will be hard and she will have to play single mother most of the time, but she feels the sacrifice is worth it in the long run.
My friend knows her path and knows her true home is in Morocco. As for me, I’m still not sure where my home is.
I think of going back to Marrakech, and I’m filled with warmth and excitement for all the opportunities that await me there. I miss my Moroccan family and how they all congregated together often, laughing and eating and arguing together.
I miss hearing my children speak in different languages from my own, their knowledge surpassing mine. I miss the novelty of living halfway across the world from my native home, the adventure of it all. Part of my heart stayed behind in Morocco.
But when I think I am on the verge of deciding to return to Morocco, my thoughts go to my husband and our family life together in the States and how I treasure the time we spend together as a couple and with our children.
Therein lays the other part of my heart, the part that has no attachment to place or to a certain country but only yearns to be with the person who matters most.
In essence, no matter how much I am sure that moving back to Morocco would benefit our children and me in many ways, knowing that the decision means facing another painful and tearful airport goodbye terrifies me.
“Home” may be in Morocco or “home” may be where my husband is. I’m not sure right now. But what I am sure of is that wherever I make my home I’ll be doing so at the expense of my heart.
From the archives.
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