Dear Homesickness,
/ˈhoʊm.sɪk.nəs/
The hurt of missing home is a funny thing. You could be in an cab at 3 am in a foreign city, coming home from one of the best nights you’ve ever had in your life when all of a sudden your face feels wet. Tears start streaming from your eyes like a river held back by a dam as you remember the last time you saw your parents. The image of them full of life, married in a nice big house, the place you grew up in. You’ve been gone for so long living your dream life you forgot that time was moving back home as well. Your parents hair turned gray and the smile lines on their faces deepened. Holidays and birthdays came and went, face time dinners turned to phone calls turned to texts you forget to respond to. Time differences make it difficult to maintain track of important events. Things that were important at home are less important now, overtaken by priorities and responsibilities in your new life. Now you have to live with the fact that you are the one who made the choice to miss out on your parents’ golden years, on your sister’s birthdays and her college graduation. You miss concerts and piano recitals, your older sister’s Montauk van life era and the opportunity to get to know her husband with whom you feel like you’ve barely met. You miss the last 3 years of your dog’s life, eternally grateful you could be there with him at the end.
However, it’s not just the things you’ve missed of your family and friends. It’s what they’ve missed about your life. Your parent’s don’t even know the name of the job you’ve worked at for 4 years. They don’t know your favorite color because it’s different to the color you liked when you were little. They see your life through photos and videos, never meeting your best friend or boyfriend. They’ll never see your first apartment because it was over 5,000 miles from their house or see your first car you bought with your own money. They’ll never celebrate your 21st birthday with you or your college graduation because of how far away you were. They won’t be with you to file that police report when you had to or be with you through your first heartbreak. They won’t know the name of your favorite grocery store or what you’re cooking for dinner that night. They won’t know the little things that happen in your life like when a cute boy held the door for you at the grocery store or about the free coconut you received from a man you met while on the North Shore of Hawai’i because phone calls are limited to bigger life events and catch ups.
You get on so many flights your friends and family can barely keep track of you in this world. Even though when your travel you’re meeting countless new faces and friends, you are still feeling isolated because you are missing out on everything all to live the live you dreamed of. It’s worth it, it’s the right move and you know it is, however it doesn’t make sacrificing your old life any harder. Even if you went home, you know too much now. You know what is out in the world and you know how amazing the universe really can be. You know what your life is supposed to look like and where you’re supposed to be. You’ve completely outgrown what was once the only place you ever knew.
It’s not really a homesickness, it’s a personal nostalgia, missing the life you used to know and the experiences you used to have. It’s just that the life you knew no longer exists and will not ever exist again. You allowed good friendships to slip away because you didn’t stay in contact as much as you should have, you just expected them to be there when you got back from wherever you had been. You expected them to keep up with your life but sometimes that’s just not how it works. You get a painful wave of realization that the next time you share a home with a peaceful and loving family is when you create your own. You’re living the life you always dreamed of, not realizing you’d have to sacrifice the life you knew to get it.
Now when you travel you spend many moments trying to combat homesickness in the only way you know how: looking for little pieces of home in any way you can. You find lilac trees that remind you of the pretty purple flowers that grew outside your window when you were a child. You dance in rainstorms because they bring back memories of sitting on the front porch of your childhood home, your mother cooking dinner inside and the smell of the rain hitting the pavement outside on a warm summer day. You buy your sister’s bracelets to give them whenever and wherever you see them again. You send post cards like it’s your full time job. Whenever you see sheep you’re reminded of your childhood summers, all of which were spent in Ireland with your mother and sisters. You see bamboo and think of your sad 8 year old self who wanted to run away and live off the grid in a bamboo hut forever, a little girl who never thought she’d miss New York.
Once you reconcile with the fact that time is passing everywhere and not just where you are, you’ll find out that planet Earth is home. You can find pieces of yourself everywhere if you look hard enough. Take the time with your friends and family when you see them and cherish it because you never know how much time you’ll have, but you can’t forget about the friends and family you have yet to meet too. Whenever you feel a pang of homesickness or feelings of personal nostalgia, remember that home isn’t the same place you left when you were a teenager. You’ve seen and you know too much now. You can spend my days longing for an extinct life or building a new one of your own. You can miss the way your dog used to sneeze and the jingle of his collar when you would walk through the door. You can miss the sounds of laughter and happiness that once echoed through the walls of the house you grew up in, replaced now by an eerie silence. You can wander through the rooms reminiscing and looking at the wall that documented your sisters’ growth and the kitchen table that has doodles underneath it from 2004, but none of that is going to bring back the home you once had.
It’s a funny thing, the hurtful yurning for a place and a time that no longer exists.
