Winter holidays for me are unfortunately over, as I came back to the Netherlands a little bit earlier than my university peers. I decided to hop on a flight before the start of the next period to see the national paralysis of Dutch people in response to snowfall. Just kidding – the real reason lies in my attempt to force myself to believe that being away from home will enable me to procrastinate less and focus more on my thesis. But am I still allowed to say I left my home?
I have to admit that I have lost the sense of feeling at home. Not even a dictionary definition could help me identify where my home is. Now I understand how children raised in ethnically mixed families feel, never being able to feel commitment to only one country, one nationality and one culture. Every time I am asked to fill in my address on a document, slight discomfort sets in. I know I should put my Dutch address as my home, but it is the Polish one where I was raised, where my room is, where my favourite books are, where my mum is, and where I always come back.
When I leave a house, there is always something I leave behind. Saying goodbye to the Netherlands is saying goodbye to my friends, my career, my habits and my routine. Dutch soil is where my character development took place; it polished my skills, tested my strength and independence. But it will never be a place that carries my identity. It will never be responsible for how I view the world.
Saying goodbye to Poland is saying goodbye to my favourite bakery. It is saying goodbye to the daily ritual of listening to the radio and understanding the jokes. To all those small but ever so important things.
And every time I am unable to reply to a stranger in Dutch, I feel guilty for not having sacrificed enough time to learn the language of the country I live in. And every time I struggle for words in Polish to explain to my relatives what I have learnt at university, I see that I have lost my panache. And I am starting to wonder, will I ever find a place I feel fully connected to again?
Rita Wiśniewska, is a third-year European Law student