I am currently at home in Italy, which is where I come from. And I could not feel furthest from home. My dad saw me and understood there’s something off with me. He asked what is wrong.

How can I explain that everything here feels foreign? It is like I moved on and everything else here stayed the same. Plus, in Italy I have suffered much more than anywhere else.

It is not that I do not like coming home. It is just that I do not fit in anymore. I never fitted here, to be honest. I have always wanted to get away, and as soon as I finished high school I managed to start a life elsewhere.

I do not know why, exactly. I have always felt like I needed something that I could not find here. I felt trapped in a so small town and I needed to know more of the world. I have always had this feeling that I needed a purpose to live, and that I was constantly missing out on something.

England took me in and made me feel home. In England most of the people do not care about where you come from, as long as you can demonstrate that you are capable of something. In Italy, or at least where I live, it is all about appereances.

And I never been about that. Maybe that is why I have never fitted. Here you have to study at university, if not you are a failure. Here you have to have a house of you own, if not you are a failure. Here you need to look Italian to be accepted, if you were born in Italy but you are black then it does not count. Here you have more possibilities of getting a job if you know someone in the hiring place. And so on.

So, to answer my dad’s question, I just feel like this country is not my country anymore. It has never been. I am sorry that it is not, as my dearest friends and my family are all here. But it was almost as if I was born in the wrong place and I managed to get back to the right one thorugh hard work.

Do you feel more at home in countries that are not your own? Let me know!