There is a saying that you can never really ever go home once you've left. This may or may not be true. When you consider that home is a tropical paradise of which people in tiny, cold, cubicles day dream, how can you think you can never go back? I left my home 8 years ago at the age of 23 with a wife and young daughter in tow, off to make something of myself in the land of opportunity. By most standards I've done pretty okay. By most standards, not my own. Being a foreigner in the big world is always a challenge. You constantly have to worry about visas and picking your family up and moving around. There comes a point where you get tired of jumping through hoops just so you can have a home. What is worse is trying to stake your claim on anything in your profession. It is very difficult when you are not a native national to a country, you don't talk the same way, you have different views and you are almost always seen as an outsider stealing the job of a local. Many would not like to admit it but it is a sad fact. I have many friends who, after leaving Trinidad and Tobago, went to school and served in various roles abroad echoing the sentiments that they are tired and frustrated and just want to go home.
And so, one of my best friends is on his journey back to the land of the Steel Band, Limbo, Calypso and Soca. Today, you can keep in contact with people using all of the tools on the web. Video chats, emails, Twitter, blogs, Facebook which keeps you in contact but there is something about sitting in a pub, chatting over a pint that the Internet will never be able to replicate (well at least not in the next couple of years). The intimacy of a friend expressing his love for someone, or his frustration at work or the simple pleasure of having a laugh. I have no doubt we will still be in contact and still remain the best of friends but I will miss the times when he comes over to sample some of my wife's curry or after visiting another friend we found ourselves at 5AM wandering around town trying to find something to eat.
His journey is one of discovery and a fresh start and even though I wish him the best and hope that everything he is about to experience is great, I will miss my friend.
