The family you choose

This week I've been spending time with some of the people I love the most in the world, and it's been making me think a lot about family and home.

Don't get me wrong; I love my family through all our ups and downs. Especially my annoying little brother, who is so different to me that we could be a completely different species of human.

And yet, he's a rock in my life I know I can always come back to.

But it's been many years of hard work to get to a place where I can say (and I hope he does too) that he's unconditionally my people through anything that life brings.

It's different with your friends because they are the family you choose.

Out of the whole wide world and the billions of options you had, these are the humans you selected by hand to walk this life beside you. And that very improbable choice against all odds has got to mean a lot.

Because, you see, I've never quite felt I've belonged in a place. Everywhere I've been, I always felt that I was passing through.

I felt that way in London, where I grew up, and in Madrid, even though I worked in the same company and lived in the same house for ten years.

I even feel like that now in Bali. I've never quite unpacked in my mind, even though it's been my home now for over three years.

The life I've built for myself brings me joys beyond what I would have ever dreamt of asking for. But with so much embracing the moment, what I often lack is roots.

And that's precisely what I've felt this week staying with my friends, who always invite me into their lives, wrap me in warm hugs, and take care of me as if I was another one of their children. Or maybe more like a beloved family pet... one of the two!

Fate crossed our paths for a very short time when I had just graduated from uni and landed in Geneva, trying to learn to be an adult for the first time and failing spectacularly. And since then, as we all moved on through this international life, across continents and time zones, we've made an effort to find each other in the world whenever we could.

I've witnessed my friends going through all the different stages in life, love, heartbreak, marriage, children and all sorts of endings and new beginnings. I've watched them turn into proper adults, the kind that has matching furniture, family photographs and art on their walls (a stage in life that has always eluded me somehow!).

Through it all, the constant for me is that when I'm with the people I choose, I feel safe. And that's not a feeling I often have, and certainly not one I take for granted.

When I'm with my people, I feel safe, loved, accepted, held, and seen, all the beautiful things we need to feel fully human.

Home is not always a question of geography. Home is simply where your heart feels at peace.

And for me, that's when I'm surrounded by people who love and accept me simply because they choose to, not because they're genetically obliged to.

Blood is not always thicker than water. Sometimes that water is just what you need to bring you life.

Sending you all so much love,

Paula