Home.
If you’re a perpetual traveler, a digital nomad, an expat, or anyone else who spends a lot of time abroad, your relationship with this concept––maybe even this word––is a complicated beast.
There are various ways to define home.
Is it where the heart is, like my grandma’s crocheted wall hanging professes?
Is it wherever I’m with you, according to Edward Sharpe?
Is it where you do, ahem, “your business” most comfortably?
However you define it when you’re away from home for a while, there come moments where you really, really miss it. You start to ache and mope –– and if you’re like me, you scroll through nostalgic Facebook photos and Google flight prices.
Enough of it for a long time, and you might start considering moving back “home”, whether that’s your childhood town, where most of your family lives, or even just your country of origin.
However, homesickness does not mean you should go home. In fact, unless you are a sociopath or otherwise devoid of emotion –– looking at you, Spock –– homesickness can merely be a sign that you love the people and places that comprise your home.
Whether you’ve been away for a while, just left, or are still thinking about it, you should be able to spot the situations likely to set homesickness mode into motion, and plan what you will do to get through the rough patches.
Based on my experiences, three situations generally awaken the homesickness beast. Somehow miraculously, and definitely not because I used a thesaurus, they all conveniently begin with the letter H.
Health Issues
Picture it. You’re laying in bed after a long day that ended with a beer and sushi delivery. All of a sudden, your stomach turns and a wave of chills washes over your entire body.
You’ve felt this feeling before. Oh god. It’s food poisoning.
The next several hours are a mix of sensations and smell you wouldn’t wish on your worst frenemy.
You emerge from the bathroom only to flop onto a bed that isn’t yours and nurses the last few drops out of your water bottle so you won’t have to stand up to refill it.
You are the only one taking care of yourself. Even calling someone you love is out of the question –– back home, everyone is asleep. Or maybe at work.
Plus, even if you did give them a ring, no one can run to the pharmacy to bring you meds and magazines, or stop by to comfort you through the misery.
If anything makes you want to book a plane ticket back to Hometown, USA (or whatever country you’re from) it’s the utter loneliness of a health catastrophe.
Maybe you’re struggling on your own in your house or apartment, or maybe you’re wading through a healthcare system of questionable quality in a language that isn’t yours.
This pain combined with the frustration can be ruthless.
How To Get Through It
Unless you stumbled, sneezed, or somersaulted your way into a major health issue (think surgeries and long-term conditions), remember that this too shall pass. And it will probably pass relatively soon.
When you are sick or otherwise hurting, your immune system, willpower, and mental toughness are all weakened. This drop-in resilience can make the warm embrace of familiarity all the more attractive.
But allow yourself to recover from the ailment before jumping ship. You will have a much clearer sense of what you actually want to do when you’re back to feeling good. Most likely, it will be staying the course.
Holiday Hullabaloo
Oh, the holiday season. It starts in October and doesn’t seem to unleash its sparkly, light-up grasp until mid-February when love and broken hearts collide.
Every Facebook post, Instagram pic, and Snapchat is brimming with holiday cheer, from Halloween to Valentine’s Day.
Your friends and family gather for booze-soaked parties, turkey-filled plates, to-die-for cookie swaps, and champagne toasts.
They’re all together, and you’re… not. These days, they’re calling the sensation that follows FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out.
There’s no getting around it. This SUCKS. And Skyping, chatting and Snapping to share in the excitement only serves to stoke the homesickness flames.
All the while, you’re noticing aging faces and small children getting bigger in the photos.
If particular holidays have personal significance to you, you might find yourself questioning what the f•ck you’re doing not being there. (By the way, this same sentiment goes for missed weddings, birthdays, graduations, etc.)
How To Get Through It
Depending on the situation, this might be a one-off occurrence or the seemingly hundredth time you’ve virtually attended an important event back on the homefront.
This is the moment to remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing and recognize the sacrifices that come with it. Your lifestyle has given you gifts that those back home likely envy.
Remember that it is a give and take, and accept that this is a moment where it hurts.
These times of the year also tend to bring out what I like to call the guilt parade or the people in your life who remind you of how you’re missing something super important.
Try to swallow them as best you can and remember that their comments are probably based in love (albeit a little bit of selfishness), not malice.
That said –– if you’ve been gone for a while, and missing out on holidays really causes you to suffer, it might be worth reexamining your motivations for whatever it is that you are doing.
If the satisfaction of this journey isn’t outweighing the pain, it may be time to rewrite your plan.
Hard Moments
Lastly, the umbrella category –– hard moments.
At first glance, this section might seem trite, but it encompasses all of the totally unique, inexplicable, and difficult as hell things you encounter while living abroad.
From language barrier mishaps to getting hopelessly lost, to being tricked or robbed, to missing flights or buses, to just having a sheer mental breakdown over a coffee order gone wrong can all seem one thousand times worse when you are so far from home.
Times like these that show up at the wrong moment can tempt you to just give up.
How To Get Through It
First of all, take a deep breath…
And then say this to yourself: “It will all be fine.” Why? Because it will be.
Intercultural miscommunication, wrong turns, theft, inconveniences and the rest of the laundry list of difficulties you may encounter while abroad are surely difficult, but unlikely to seriously hurt or kill you.
(For exceptions, see the film Taken.)
What they will do is fortify your determination, resolve, patience, and character. They will push you to mental and physical limits and help you prove to yourself that you are a motherf•ucking badass.
The hard moments will come and go. Sometimes for a short time, sometimes for a while. But you will get through them, and you will come out the other side, wherever you are.
So, fellow traveler and lover of adventuring the wide world, you know that you’ve signed up for a bittersweet adventure.
For all of the amazing, breathtaking views, incredible people, and awe-inspiring experiences you find on the road, your home will always have an allure that cannot be replicated anywhere else.
The distance from this warm, loving place can hurt hearts, bring tears, and make us question everything we’re doing.
At some point, you may find that it is time to go home.
Perhaps along the way, the moment will come that your traveling feet will want to land on a welcome mat in front of a door to a house that stays still.
But until then, lean into the difficulties. Push yourself into the discomfort, and you might find something amazing.
You might even find a new home.
Psst. Take a look at our list of quotes about missing home.
