Homesick.

Home is a tricky word for the global development worker. Home could mean the house you grew up in, or your passport country, or the place you currently lay your head, or any one of the dozens of places you have lived in your lifetime that captured your heart in a special way. 

Home for me is Minnesota, where my biological family is. Home is Seattle, where my heart family is and where I lived for many years and where I’m still an official taxpaying resident. For many years home was on board a ship somewhere in Africa, my heart still longs to return there someday. When I think of home and my heart aches a little, I still think of Boston, though I lived there less than a year, southern France, a place I stayed several times, and Colorado and Florida though I’ve never lived there; they all contain people I love, and when I think of home, I think of being with people I love and who love me; that feeling of safety and belonging and being known, regardless of where it is, feels like home. 

It hasn’t been the easiest transition, coming to this place I am now living but don’t call home, and someone said to me yesterday when I was thinking longingly of a getaway weekend to the States, “I think you’re just really homesick”.  

I’m in my tenth year of living overseas, and it honestly never occurred to me that I could still be homesick.  When people have asked about that over the years I’ve always said nah, this is just my life, I don’t really feel that attached to one place or long to return to another. Like somehow after a certain number of years or moves or goodbyes you can turn off the emotions.  But when she said this to me it was like, duh, oh yeah. That’s it.  I’m homesick. 

And not for a certain place but for that feeling of being known and loved and belonging. 

I was watching a vlog from a friend who was talking about making friends in a foreign country. He said give it at least six months to make any progress on the friend front and I was like WHAT? Oh man… If you know me at all, you know I do things quickly. I make decisions quickly and expect things to fall into place quickly.  And until now I’ve been pretty successful at making and finding community in my own timeline.  And I’ve met some great people here, don’t get me wrong; friends I’m sure I’ll keep in contact with long after we’ve all gone our separate ways.  But I haven’t felt at home. 

So this low level despair I’ve been beating myself up over? This longing that I have been angry at myself for feeling… How can you be unhappy when you are so privileged?  By finding it’s name, it’s no longer this scary monster that I’m simultaneously running from and trying to appease.  It’s homesickness, and it’s totally normal.  I’M NOT FAILING AT LIFE, I’M NORMAL!  And that, my friends, feels like a profound relief.