the text in the frame are lyrics from "how to return home" by kerrigan-lowdermilk.

i was in high school when hamilton was still new and not yet cringe. i remember the first time i ever listened to a song from the soundtrack. a senior had sat me down and made me put on her earphones to listen to "burn". i didn't like it yet. it didn't help that i was also very intimidated by this senior.

the next time was probably from my roommate, ainah, who was obsessed with musicals. she was the person who got me into showtunes albeit with mostly no choice on my part (we shared the same airspace). she was also probably the person who introduced me to "how to return home". she introduced me to a lot of songs.

as kids in boarding school, of course the song resonated. it still does now as i'm about to finish uni. almost half of my life (sans the pandemic years) has always been this sort of tug-of-war on the concept of home. home (as in, the house i grew up in) was just somewhere i visited from time to time. for most of my daily life, when i say "home", i'm actually thinking about my dorm. "home" becomes that little house in the province when the conversation is about origin, where i come from.

home is also usually where family is. but not even that is a constant. my family is scattered all over. my father has been working in singapore for the last 8 years and my mother is more often busy tending to our farm a few towns away. my younger brother is in college now and has his own life. i've stopped going "home" except for the holidays when everyone else does too.

i have not lived much yet to be able to definitively define home, i think. but i also think it's something that defies definition. right now, home is wherever the stars shine the brightest. tomorrow, i think i'll say something different.