Recently my five year old has been asking a lot of questions about where we live. Questioning where we lived before our new house, and before Qatar, and before Dubai.
He understands that he was born in London, that he is British. He can’t quite comprehend that his brother was born in Dubai, and is also British. But we’re getting there slowly with that one.
He knows that Grandma lives in England, so does his Aunts and Uncles, that Grandpa lives in Cyprus and we live in Qatar.
Even though we’re all British.
And he knows that we won’t live in Qatar forever.
Which has left him wondering, asking and debating.
Mummy, when will we live in our REAL home?
The problem is I don’t know. Our real home. The one we will live in forever.
I don’t know what our “forever home” will look like. I’m not sure where our forever home will be. And right now, I have no desire to return to our home country on a permanent basis.
Which leaves us here. On a permanent work contract and two year visa.
And no forever home.
Right now I can’t look any further forward than our summer flights, the epic trip back home we have planned.
I think about our day to day life, meal planning, evenings out with friends, play dates and coffee. We talk of upcoming holidays, the impending doom of the long dusty summer. I think about the fact that we have a school place for both boys in September, heck even the reality that my three year old will be off to big school in September.
I don’t think about the transient nature of expat life nor how hard it is to say goodbye. Or leaving behind everything we have built up over the past eighteen months, the friendships, the home, the routine.
A move back to England just isn’t on the radar.
And I know that it doesn’t always work like that, we weren’t really expecting to end up in Qatar after Dubai.
But for now I cannot see us settling back into English Suburbia life, which to be honest is the only place our “forever home” would likely to be.
I can’t see us swapping the desert of Doha for the greenery of Kent.
At the end of the day, our real home is wherever we make it. Together. As a family. Surrounded by the little pieces that mean so much to us.
After all my little inquisitive cherub, home is where the heart is, and my heart is firmly with my boys.
