"Smile at me and swear you never had a doubt!"

"Ana, we are going home! Almost, two more weeks and exams are over and we are going home!" I look at it you and I wonder where does this need to go home come from? It can't come from the so-called feeling of missing because we have already lived abroad for the last three years; it can't come either from any cultural shock because the French culture is closer to our own than any other... So where does it come from, this feeling of wanting to go home?

Do we need to look into the eyes of our family? Do we need to look at them to see our reflection - not to see them but to see us? Have we after all this studying and living and travelling abroad lost our roots and it is simply time to look into the eyes of those have known us for a long time, who are familiar with our culture, our background, speak our language,... to see us again? Have we nothing to offer except our own confusion?

BUT, what's the price we pay for finding us in their reflection? Isn't it the price of the past? Doesn't the tag say one year old or even three years old? When we go back in order to be "us" again don't we lie to each other? Because as much as they love us, they reflect to a certain point only our past!
-----------------------------------------
That's the answer I gave you and you look at me with these big brown eyes incapable to understand what I just meant and wondering if you should be angry or just laugh and keep counting the days. Finally you decide to stay and just keep on having some more cookies.... till I start again:

"I go home because I need to be in the house, in my house, in our family house because being in it is like having my inside turned outside! I know all of its little noises and which door opens in which way, etc. Like me it has grown older, rooms have changed, reparations have been made but it is still there, giving us all a roof! It has kept all the memories, the good and the bad ones and it seems like it wants to whisper into my ear sometimes: "I haven't surrendered, nor have you and nor will you!"

France hasn't been easy: as much as I like Rennes and like French people and their culture and have made wonderful friends, arriving into French university system and being considered a proper French student hasn't been easy! It has been scary, very scary because there has never been a foreigner bonus just a look saying "adopt and write me papers in the same way French students would do!" After the fear came reality: I knew I had and still have no choice: I had to jump into it, to try, to leave perfectionism outside the door and just keep hoping that I wouldn't drown! That has been the hardest part!

So I need to go back not to see my family because I could meet them at any other place in this world, but I need to go home to be in the house. I need to go up its step, make its doors crack, jump on my bed, see my family in it, so that I realize once more that as long as the house doesn't surrender, I go on! It's like it wants to tell me "Smile at me and swear you never had a doubt!"!
--------------------------------------
And you, you are finishing the last biscuits.