From a young age, it was the nail in the coffin that I was going to study abroad. I spent a year in the United States on an exchange program before attending university. The experience of being away from home for a year made me feel confident about my future university life. I also had many friends who were going to study abroad, and when we got together, we would always look forward to seeing each other again when we came home for the upcoming year. It wasn't until a change in my family that I "lost" my home and my sense of security when I first arrived in Canada.

​

I was struggling to find, or build, a "home." I moved a few times, changed a few roommates, and was lost in my attempt to find a home. As my family continued to change, it kept hitting me over and over on my road to finding a direction. It forced me to grow and face the changes repeatedly until the COVID epidemic stopped my hasty search for a home and made me take a new approach to home, survival, and life.

​

I used to think that a stable place to live was home or that a place with family was home. But even though I've been moving around and haven't lived with my family or the same person for more than two years, I still put as much thought and effort into the places I've lived as I do into a home. Because of this care and effort, any place can be a home. When you keep working, growing and learning, your ability and dedication to life will become the reason you define a place as home, and home becomes the harvest of your efforts for life and dreams. Your home will always be there if you do not stop fighting for your life and dreams.

​