The way home

or field notes from a month spent walking

1. Longing

What if this whole time, you were already loved?
What if this whole time you were searching for home, it already existed within?
How differently would you live?

I’ve been walking a lot lately. I follow winding paths downhill. Rocks slide under my feet, forcing me forward, open air on my right-hand side.

I walk alone. I walk behind people who feel safe, and people who don't. I lose myself in the drumbeat of footsteps, knees crying out at the impact.

The bark on trees beside the path is smoothed over at hand height, years of fingertips traced across the same patch of trunk. I look to my left and wonder what questions each walker asked of the earth between steps, promises made in return for faith.

I wonder if they knew they were loved.

I wonder if years of touch could soften me, the way it softened this place.

I think I've been walking towards something. Or maybe retracing, watching the ground for crumbs I might have dropped–all that’s left of the girl I was before I lost track of my place, before the compass needle spun.

Before this life, there were school corridors: I walked them too, long and full of life, toward the art classroom at lunch. Between desks, between drying racks where our dreams lay, curled at the edges. Hardening in the heat.

Teachers took our hands and pulled, this way, they said. Steps leading to the foot of a ladder. Success? Place one foot here and it will make sense, we promise. The rungs are well trodden and there isn’t far to fall.

Quickly, cloud covered the floor and I forgot where I began.

I kept moving.

2. Reckoning

I’ve been walking towards something.
The thing I want? The thing I am?

I hear whispers of footsteps, laughter. I can’t remember if they’re mine. Can’t remember the shape of the shadows I left in the world.

Who was I?

Someone
before I learned how to disappear. To read a room and erase myself from it. Before I understood that walking meant shrinking to fit. Before the label artist filled me with laughter, shame.

On the way, there were rules I swallowed like stones:
Be good.
Be small.
Be polite.
Smile, even when your jaw aches.
Don’t cry. Or not like that.

And when you are alone again, know that it is because you were too much. Or maybe this time, not enough.

Is this the path?
Or just another loop, back to where we left the car? Will I still be lost if I let you lead me? If I let your voice drown out the one in my heart?

The grief is quiet, yet blade-sharp.
It comes on the plane ride home,
in the supermarket aisle,
in a stranger’s perfume,
in the sketchbooks I find buried in my wardrobe.

Some days, I look at my reflection like I owe her an apology. On others, I look like someone I almost recognise:

Free like May spring air,
I’m on my bike in the bus lane, running reds, wind-pink cheeks and salt on my upper lip. Speeding away from the girl I became when fear was my only guide.

And still–somewhere in my chest, underneath the ache and static–I think I knew the way.

3. Arrival

It’s quieter now. Tree cover opens to reveal a blue sky. Not silent, just more still.

I hear questions between footsteps, but they land softer, drizzle on an open bud. Here, peace comes in the asking, not in the answers.

The eyes in the mirror soften, from accusatory to understanding. To recognition.

A hand on bark.
A bike in spring air.
The sound of my breath, familiar again.

Somewhere between stone paths and river crossings, the ache stopped meaning I was broken–it just meant I was here.

Maybe I was brave enough all along, dreams already humming in the corners–ocean blue, vibrant with movement.

What if I walked not to find the path, but moved like I belonged? If I walked as if the thing I wanted was already mine–because it was.

What if this whole time,
you were already loved?

What if this whole time,
you were already home?