There are some pieces of writing that don’t just describe life — they capture a feeling. This essay was written 10 years ago by my son, Lakshan Dharmapriya, for his Year 12 speech, as he reflected on the meaning of home, identity, childhood, and the places that shape us. It is a story about Manchester and Australia, but more than that, it is a story about belonging.

For so many of us, “home” isn’t just a country, a street or a house. It’s a memory. A moment in time. A feeling we carry with us no matter where we end up in the world.

I share his writing here (with his full permission) because it speaks to something universal:
the journey of leaving, growing, changing, and eventually coming home — not to a place, but to yourself.

MY DIARY

By Lakshan Dharmapriya – Written in Year 12 (2015)

19th January 2009:
Dear Diary,
It’s raining. Again. Typical Manchester. It’s a big day today, one of the biggest in my life so far I reckon. I’ve worked so hard. I hope it all pays off. I know they say that school doesn’t really mean anything once you finish but I’m hoping it does. And anyway, I’m still a long way off Year 12. Today, I would be sitting with all my friends in a hall doing exams. Doesn’t that sound fun? Not just any exams though. These were the entrance exams for Manchester Grammar School. This one day could shape my future! Even just a little bit. I don’t think I’ve ever been this nervous before. Anyway, breakfast is ready. Wish me luck!

17th February 2009:
Dear Diary,
Today my life got flipped upside down. I don’t know what to do. Everything happened so quickly and honestly i’m not even sure it’s real. Today was awesome until it happened. Until mum & dad sat us down on the golden sand of Broad beach and told us something that blew our mind. Something that was so out of this world that it easily could have been a joke. The sort of thing that really does shape your future, significantly more than a silly little entrance exam. Today, mum & dad told us that we were moving to the other side of the world, to Australia.

6th October 2015:
Dear Diary,
First day of term four is over. Six and a half weeks left. Then I’m done; forever. We received our final piece of English assessment today which was both relieving and a nuisance. Just another thing to do. We have to write some sort of reflection and I’m sure Miss said something about a poem. I was reading through the poetry booklet and nothing stood out. Nothing spoke to me; that was until I got to page 66. To be honest at this point I wasn’t really paying much attention to the words. I skipped the title and just started mindlessly reading; and even though I wasn’t exactly sure what it said, I knew I could use it. I knew that it would help me tell my story. Home…it was called home.

Speech:
Memories; that pleasant image in your head that you constantly grasp onto when you’re feeling down; that nightmarish experience that you continuously push away.
After getting this task, I knew I wanted to talk about home. Home being the wet, cold streets of Manchester. But I wasn’t sure exactly what to say. Thinking about my memories of home I honestly couldn’t think of anything significant. Nothing worthy of a speech, but what I realised was that virtually all of memories were positive ones; I spent some time contemplating why this was, why I couldn’t think of anything negative. It took a while but eventually it came to me.
It was my childhood. My youth. My innocence.

Eleven years in England. Eleven of the most pleasant years of my life. Although memories may just be an event, a person, a feeling, pretty much anything; they all depend on you and your surroundings. Whilst living in the UK, I was a kid. A kid with a lovely family, in a lovely neighbourhood. A kid that felt safe where he was. Felt safe at home watching the Simpsons at 6’o’clock every day. Felt safe doing the long jump in the sand pit at the park just down the road. Felt safe walking to the end of the street and buying sweets with the money his mum gave him to buy bread and milk. A kid that constantly looked to have fun and was able to do so because he knew nothing would happen to him. That sense of security did it for me. When people ask me whether I like Australia better than England I find it hard to answer. My 6 years in this country have been predominantly engulfed by adolescence. Arguably the most difficult years of a person’s life. And in my opinion that’s the difference. My experiences in Australia have been tougher than my experiences in Manchester but that is just what comes with being a teenager.

In 2007, Malaysian writer, Mohammed Haji Salleh, wrote a poem called ‘Home’. I couldn’t find out exactly what his words were in reference to but it was clear that this place, person or thing that he spoke of, made him feel warm, secure and happy and this is how Manchester makes me feel.
The first line of ‘Home’ reads, “Home is the place where the diseased world dies at the door.” Being a maximum age of 11, whilst living in England I was never subject to what Salleh describes as the ‘diseased world.’ I never ventured into places that would fall into this category and that is solely down to my family and friends. I was constantly protected and when Salleh speaks of ‘the door’, my interpretation of this is not the physical door of the house in which I lived, but a door which my parents controlled. I know that makes my parents sound strict and scary but I don’t mean it that way. I mean, all of our childhoods were censored in a way, our parent’s chose where we went and what we saw and although that sounds like a bad thing; it wasn’t. The decisions that our parents made allowed us to feel safe in what we did whereas now, we’re out there. In the big bad world and we’re not always going to have someone to tell us what to do and where to go.

He says later in the poem that, “Home is where they never say ‘no’.” Maybe not the complete truth but I guess he’s got a bit of poetic license. When you think about it, during your childhood you get a lot of the things you want without asking. You get toys, breakfast, lunch and dinner, and you get driven around. You get a lot of stuff. And due to this, personally I don’t think I asked for much more as a child. And anything that I did ask for most likely wasn’t that important. Things didn’t matter as much as a child. The most important thing to you was having the newest toys or being able to watch TV while you ate dinner. Now it’s different. There’s more people that can say no to you. Parents, teachers, universities, football clubs. Everything matters that much more.

The final words of the poem are, “Home is you, and where you hope to die.” Although I’ve spoken about my home as Manchester for the entirety of this speech, that’s not correct. I plan on visiting Manchester next year sometime and I’m 100% sure it will not come close to replicating the feelings I once had. Manchester is simply the place in which I experienced the feeling. I hope I die surrounded by the feeling of home. Not a specific place, but a place in which I feel safe to do what I please. A place in which nothing really matters that much. A place where I am not tangled in the “diseased world” that undoubtedly is waiting at the door.

Home is a feeling; and that feeling of home will change radically as we get older, experience new things and receive new responsibility. Things are unquestionably going to get harder in life, but just because this is the case, doesn’t mean we are lost. We will no doubt find that feeling of home through other means whether it be a person, a hobby or a place. So be open to it and welcome the feeling of home; don’t compare it to what it used to be.

Join the “Coming Home” Journey With Us

If this story resonated with you, I invite you to go deeper. We are about to begin a very special 20-day reflective series inside our Facebook community called Coming Home: A Journey Back to Our Roots.

This campaign is for anyone who wants to explore:

• where their story began

• the traditions and memories that shaped them

• the feeling of home and belonging

• identity, childhood, culture, and transformation

Every day we will share prompts, stories, reflections, photos, and conversations that will encourage you to reconnect with the places and memories that made you who you are today.

It’s not about my journey — it’s about yours.

If you’d love to take part in the Coming Home campaign, reflect on your roots, and connect with other like-minded women, we would love to have you.

👇Join our Facebook community:

Let’s begin this journey together.