Where Is Home?

Charleston and I have parted ways...we had a fabulous love affair and the last few weeks were like the beginning (eleven years ago)...fun, exciting, and passionate...but I had to let him go.  Sometimes you have to walk away...perhaps to confirm that you were meant to be...

Since leaving Charleston, I have spent the last few weeks in the small community where I grew up...living with my parents, visiting family and dear friends, and driving around reminiscing...I have been contemplating "where is home?" 

Is home where your family is?  If you have been fortunate enough to have a family like mine, the answer is yes.  I come from a family where loyalty, support, love, humor, resilience, and understanding are the threads that bind us.  I can honestly NEVER recall a time when anyone in my family needed something and had to go it alone.  We are a team, we stick together.  Despite living away from my family for a while, I knew I could always come home.

Is home where you became an adult and established yourself?  If you have been fortunate enough to have attended college where I did, developed the friendships I have, and came into your own in (my opinion and Travel and Leisure Magazine) the most glorious city in America, the answer is yes.  Anyone that knows me knows how much Charleston means to me and how much it pains me to have left.  While I loved visiting my family, I would get that child-on-Christmas Eve feeling while I was driving home (back to Charleston).

Is home going to become Beirut?  I will be fortunate to live and work in one of the most historical, exciting, happening, beautiful cities in the world.  Will I have with Beirut what I have Charleston?  Will I develop the friendships that I am lucky enough to have developed in Charleston?  Will I make friends that are as dear as my friends from childhood? Will I find a surrogate family to guide me as mine isn't close by?  Will I respect and appreciate Beirut as I do my town from childhood?  Will I fall in love with Beirut as I did with Charleston? 

I am exhilarated by the fact that I am moving to the fantastic city that is Beirut, however I can't shake the question of where is home...

Thoughts? Advice? Guidance?