The Repatriation Of Me

I left behind a home I built,
not from bricks, not from deeds,
but from hands that held,
from voices that steadied,
from love that was never bound by blood
but by the quiet certainty
that I belonged.

I left behind laughter in sun-warmed kitchens,
weekend mornings wrapped in salt air and lazy tides,
arms that caught me when I fell,
when I faltered,
when I simply needed to be held.

I left behind a family
that was not given but chosen,
threaded together in the way only love can weave,
stronger than circumstance,
woven tighter than distance.

And I miss them—
God, I miss them.
The weight of their presence
now an ache in the space they once filled,
a silence too vast to measure.

But love is not a chain;
it is a current.
It carries us forward,
pulling us toward the shores we cannot ignore.

And so, we came home.

Home—
to a land that stretches wide and wild,
where the air smells of pine and open sky,
where the mountains rise like ancient sentinels,
watching over lakes that hold the sky
in their glassy embrace.

Home—
to roads where bears amble in ditches,
where moose lift their heads in the hush of dawn,
where the rivers sing in languages older than time,
and every path we walk is carved with a history
that still whispers in the trees.

Home—
where the water calls,
where we glide across lakes,
where the earth beneath our feet feels familiar,
steady, sure.
Where Sophie runs ahead,
ears pricked, tail high,
a creature as free as the land that holds her.

We have planted roots in this soil,
have carved out a future
in the arms of a country we have always loved.
We are building something lasting,
brick by brick, step by step,
a place that is ours in every way that matters.

And soon—
another heart will beat in the rhythm of this land,
another breath will join the wind that moves
through forests we already call home.

This country—
with its kindness, its care, its unwavering values—
this is where our future begins.
Where we grow.
Where we build.
Where we become.

But even as I stand here,
feet planted, heart full,
I carry the weight of what was left behind.
Because coming home
also means leaving home.

And I feel it—
in the empty space where familiar laughter should be,
in the echoes of voices I cannot reach.
Love stretches across oceans,
but it does not erase the distance.

Still, I am grateful.
Grateful for the love that remains,
grateful for the ground beneath me,
grateful for the choice
to begin again,
to root myself in the place
where my heart has always belonged.

And maybe that is what home truly is—
not just one place,
not just one life,
but the endless, aching beauty
of belonging to both.