Finding Flow, Finding Home

On building community, connection, and belonging across continents

When I say the word “home”, what comes to your mind?

My mom would say, “Home is where your family is.” Somehow, this did not really resonate with me at first but later on, I would come to realize she is right all along.

You see, I never grew up with my parents. My father left this world when I was a little child and my mother went abroad for work as my sole provider. And so I grew up with my grandmother and my uncle’s family. And together with them, we moved from Malaysia to Singapore, from one apartment to another throughout my childhood.

All of them were home at one point, until they were not.

Perhaps those early shifts taught me that home was never about the four walls, but something I could carry within me. Prior to meeting my husband and having children, I had already moved countries six times and had lost count how many homes I had moved between.

Over the past three years of our family nomad life, our physical dwellings have taken many shapes and forms.

From wild camping in our own five-meter spacious tent to a cozy wine barrel cave cabin in Germany.
From an airtight sardine ferry room on an overnight ferry crossing from France to Morocco, to a camper van in Portugal.
From a yurt in Spain to a spacious studio with a view of the Bulgarian mountains, where I find myself writing today.

Some lasted a night. Others, months.

Sometimes they are cozy, sometimes cold. Some run on solar, some do not. Some are surrounded by humans, others stand in isolation.

As you can probably gather by now, I have grown to not be too attached to any physical home. In fact, it goes far beyond the physical for me. To me, home is rather a feeling…

A feeling of warmth. 
A feeling of connection. 
A feeling of closeness. 
A feeling of comfort and safety. 
A feeling of depth and love. 
A feeling of flow.
A feeling of belonging. 

Growing up, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by a large, loving extended family who provided me with an environment where I felt many of these feelings. For the gaps I did feel, maybe due to the absence of my parents, I surrounded myself with friends. Or maybe that is just my nature. I am not too sure.

Upon reflection, I realized that the ability to gather people around me is one of my superpowers since I was a child.

I was the one planning meetups among my school friends. As I became an adult, I could move to a completely new country and make friends instantly. Friends for coffee, friends for hiking, friends for dancing, friends for deep talks so on. Somehow, I could always find the people I needed, and the people who needed me. As I entered the professional world, I would hone my superpower to create communities of like-minded people supporting each other to grow and learn together. And more importantly, to create a sense of belonging to each other.

In the past three years as nomads, as we move from one dwelling to another, one country to another, we have mostly been, in one way or another, at home. Because no matter where our journey takes us, we have community.

Perhaps there are fellow traveling families like us living close by.
Or the mastermind group I created online with fellow worldschooling mothers, who are also building their own businesses and sharing our ups and downs.
Or maybe it is a close cousin, with whom I share views on spirituality for hours on end on the phone.
Or those voice messages I exchange with close friends on motherhood — the struggles and the wins — feel like home too.

I don’t pretend I feel this every single day and it is certainly not always easy.

I do miss real coffees with my closest friends instead of voice notes. I do miss physical hugs with the humans I love. At times, there is no one around us we feel connected to. Or a simple barrier of language. And sometimes I am just tired of packing and unpacking.

But even going through moments like these, neither my husband nor I long for a fixed home at the moment. Our children don’t show any signs of missing that either. Perhaps because moving on is all they know and they really thrive in the discovery. Or perhaps the four of us being together since they came into this world is their constant, their home, that we bring with us everywhere we go. We are so blessed to have each other. We are their home, and they are our home.

This is our home

What I have come to learn over all these years is that to feel “at home” and all those feelings that come with it is a personal responsibility. Home does not just come to us. We can create it ourselves. Only if we want it enough. By taking one tiny step at a time. It usually means making the first move. It starts with one smile, one wave or one hello. A conversation, one moment of genuine connection. All these little gestures are connection in action, community in creation. Home is only one choice away.

Who knows? Maybe one day, we will find all of these feelings in a physical place we can call home. But until then, I relish in the belonging we have created within and around us — beyond borders, beyond cultures and beyond differences. This is what we take with us as we journey on.

Maybe home, like flow, is never fixed but always created in the movement itself.

Just as a river finds its way around obstacles, always moving toward the sea, we find our way to belonging by moving toward connection. The current carries us forward, but we choose which way to follow, which banks to rest beside, which fellow travelers to journey with.

What does “home” mean to you right now? Is it a place, a person, or a feeling?

May you always be in flow.

With love and joy,
Connie

P.S. Thank you Jutta for inspiring this piece with your deep questions! 😊🙏🏼

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