Home is where my heart should be.

Home is where my heart should be. It’s the place I imagine as safe, familiar, and comforting — where food is shared without fear, and love is expressed through cooking, feeding, and gathering around a table. It's about welcoming people, celebrating milestones, softening hard days, and saying I love you without needing words.

But as a Filipino living with Celiac Disease, I’ve learned that coming home now means reminding myself that this is my home — I have to face it with a new set of feelings. Each trip carries hope, fear, and a full maleta of gluten-free food. Then there's the prayer I don’t always say out loud: I would like to make it through the end of this trip without getting sick, please.

The moment I see the lights as the plane lands in Manila, my heart still warms. There’s a pause — a breath I catch — where I quietly remind myself that I will be okay. It's the best view, especially at Christmas time. That celebratory feeling of coming home is still there, but it now carries a sense of caution alongside comfort. What used to feel effortless now requires planning, vigilance, and emotional preparation.

Food, once my strongest connection to home, one of my favourite reasons to come home, has become the most complicated part of returning. Dishes I grew up loving now come with questions. Saying “no” to food offered with love can feel like refusing connection. I see it in people’s faces, my family and friends, I know with all my heart, they mean well.

What makes it harder is the misunderstanding. Gluten isn’t visible. Cross-contamination isn’t obvious. And explaining Celiac Disease over and over — to family, to friends, to elders — can feel exhausting and isolating every trip I make. The repetition can wear me down some days.

There are moments when I feel like a guest at my own table. When I bring my own food, eat separately, or quietly decline dishes, I wish I could trust. When I smile and say I’m fine, while mourning the ease I once had. Home doesn’t always feel like home when you can’t fully participate in the rituals that define it.

And yet, this journey has also taught me something unexpected.

Home isn’t just about tradition — it’s about safety. It’s about being believed when I say something harms me. It’s about care that adapts, not love that insists you endure pain to belong. Home becomes the family member who asks questions instead of dismissing concerns. The relative who learns slowly but sincerely. The moments they don't single me out worried I haven't been fed enough.

The small adjustments that say, I matter too.

Living with Celiac Disease has forced me to redefine what coming home means. It’s no longer just about returning to a place — it’s about rebuilding trust. With food. With my body. With the idea that I can belong without compromising my health.

Home is where my heart is. And while this journey has been painful, it has also taught me something important: sometimes, home isn’t something you simply return to — it’s something you bravely rebuild. Rebuild through boundaries. Through education. Through one safe meal at a time. And through the quiet resilience of choosing yourself, even when it’s uncomfortable.

I still hope. I will still always want to come back. And every time I do, I will carry the belief that home can grow with me — that one day, safety and belonging won’t feel like opposing forces, but like parts of the same table.

~Marge