My city finally feels like home again. Even though the weather reports might say otherwise, in my mind, the air just feels cooler, crisper and cleaner. Everything seems renewed and robust, with the stench of decaying flesh and ideas having left through the back door. Today, I want nothing more than to raise a toast to the city of my birth, and the only place I have ever called home.

Everyone I have ever loved is here, even the ones I've lost... they're still here mixed in its soil. Making sure that no matter where I am and what I walk upon, I'm always connected to them.

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For most of my life, it always felt like I was searching for something to belong to and call my own. My journey took me many miles, both internally and externally. I sought not answers, but questions to the answers that I had already known. I needed to find my peg on the wall and hang my coat on it. I needed a spot to rest my head upon and sleep a dreamless sleep. I didn't need definition as much as I needed deconstruction. I didn't need to be loved as much as I needed to be unravelled.

There were several times when I thought I'd come close but there was always something missing. It may have only been a very small part that was missing but without it, I felt more hollow and empty than when I had started out. I didn't have a clear picture of what it was that I was looking for, but of this I was sure. That once I found it, I would bury it deep inside so that it would always remain a part of me and everything I did. I fiercely tried to guard the identity of something that hadn't yet belonged to me or even revealed itself to me.

Then, I stopped looking.

I realise now that it really was just a tiny fraction of the whole, for which I had been waiting. The one that's made all the difference.