Homesickness is Actually About Finding a Home Within

I assign the name HOME to a lot of different places, she says with her Union Jack mug, and her Central Perk pajamas. No matter where I am living, I often find myself homesick for one of those places at any given time. 

Homesickness in the pandemic has come on thicker than my pre-pandemic expat days. I guess that's no big surprise. After all, a lot of expats moved back to their home countries this year. I was tempted to move a couple times, myself, but then pondered, "does anywhere even feel like home right now?" The pandemic had made every place on earth feel barren, isolating, unwelcoming. 

Sometimes homesickness builds up slowly, like a leaky faucet. Sometimes homesickness feels like sledgehammer. During the thick of the pandemic, homesickness felt more like I brick wall I was stuck in. I had never experienced being so cut off from the USA and it was a bizarre experience to go through. Even now, as things are opening up and feeling better, I am still unpacking whatever the *fuck* we went through. From sorting through the fuckery, I figured out some things about the psychology behind homesickness. 

The biggest revelation is actually pretty obvious in retrospect: the times I feel the most homesick are also the times I'm feeling terribly unsettled within. It's these times that I am desperately searching for a sense of home and security. To regain a sense a balance, I have to rebuild home within myself. 

This means I have to ask myself the hard questions every. damn. day. Those questions are: 

• Why am I feeling unsettled? 
• Am I feeling left out/lonely? 
• Am I being triggered by something that reminds me of a trauma from childhood? 
• Am I trying to escape from a situation that I actually need to confront/talk about? 
• Am I feeling guilt/my choice to live abroad is selfish? 

Journaling, talking with other expats about shared struggles, and therapy obviously help in this department. 

After asking the hard questions, the next step is building more community in a thoughtful way. This means putting myself out there with old and new friends (which is taking some getting used to after regressing to being a socially awkward hermit thanks to Covid). This does not mean over-socializing, but making sure to balance my alone time with enriching community time. 

Of course, for some people the right answer is to move back to their home country. But this decision should not be made hastily without really assessing the root of one's homesickness. After all, we're expats for a reason! 

This is my 3rd year of being an expat, and what I know to be true is homesickness often leaves as soon as it comes in. Feeling homesick will always be a thing our gypsy souls struggle with. As expats, we are the seekers, the questioners, the vagabonds. In making big and daring moves, we'll sometimes cling onto the familiar comfort zones of the past. 

Despite the homesickness, this is my truth: I am a free spirit, and I ultimately find security in that freedom. In accepting my true nature and cultivating my own unique path, I have found my true home.