So where's home for you Muhammed ?

When meeting new people a popular crowd question for me is usually this "So ... where's home for you Muhammed ?" After stating that my name is Mahmoud and not Muhammed, I pause, because until now i can't honestly say I have found a place called home and this is why ?

I was Born in Kuwait to two Palestinian parents, I hold two passports Jordanian and Australian, yet I felt most comfortable/loved/stable and in Bahrain.

So which one those should I call home .. and although I believe home to be a very subjective matter where feelings and emotions cannot be ignored, I'll try to approach this with as much objectively and try to break it down to see where that takes me.

First is my origin Palestine, now I am Palestinian by blood, and both parents have placed a lot effort in teaching us the history of Palestine and our role as Palestinians, and I have been quite active in the Palestinian communities through different stages of my life, and with the current situation there, it just adds to my attachment there, now I have only visited it twice, the latest being roughly 13 years ago, and I still follow the news on what happens there on a daily basis, so I cant exclude it.

Second is my birth place Kuwait, where I was born and left when the Gulf war started, to be honest I don't remember much of my time besides a few memories and what our apartment looked like at the time, nor do I have the urge to go back there or any significant emotional bonds to the place, so I call safely exclude it from that list, and even though my very first memories are there I don't think its enough to keep it around as a candidate for home.

Next on the List is Jordan ... well Jordan to me was amazing, I have lived there on three different stages, one as a first grade kid right after Kuwait, the second was at grade 5 right after we came back from Australia and the third was when I moved out at the age of 16 which was the longest and latest roughly 5 years ( that's my record for most continuous time spent in one country), now living in Jordan shaped most of my personality traits and I have had an absolute blast of a time there, School was great, University was mind blowing and I completely loved the place, and add that the fact that I hold a Jordanian Passport, so Jordan is looking like a pretty good option.

Then we move to Bahrain, which is simply lovely, the people are welcoming, and I spent 4 years there most of middle school and a bit of high school, but I think with Bahrain as much as I loved the place, I don't think that love is an enough reason to call a place home, there has to be bond, something that runs deeper than love, so I'm afraid Bahrain is off the list.

And Lastly we have Australia, which I stayed in over two stages once as a kid for about 4 years and then at uni since 2007 which is almost 4 years, and through that time I have had the most personal growth ever, it gave me the opportunity to travel, try new things, explore other cultures and much much more, add to that the fact that I'm also a citizen of Australia, so that's still a viable option.

So in the end we have Palestine, Jordan and Australia, which brings to me to two questions, first is "Does home only have to be one place ? or is it "acceptable" to have more than one home and the second "Does home have to be a geographical place ?", Or can home be a concept rather than a place, where home is wherever one feels loved and safe.

I have yet to find and answer on where home is and where I'm from, but when asked that question I usually go with the answer that requires minimal follow ups or is most convenient for the crowd I'm addressing, for this is too much information to share with a crowd that can't pronounce my name.

I'll end this with a quote that best describes my current state by Maya Angelou when she said "I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself"