A Journey through Homesickness

Posted by Katrien Vander Straeten Jul 6, 2006

It was tough leaving home in the first place: you went far away, nw you miss your family, and culture shock hits you extra hard, especially in the little, daily things.

But you get through it, and you make your new home, and in your new friends you find a second family of sorts.

Then you have to go through it all over again on your return visits?!

Homesickness, I find, just gets more and more complex as you build and rebuild more homes, and that makes sense, come to think of it.

And thus homesickness takes you back to a past home that you can never recover, while it also assails you in the present. Moreover, it strikes in several directions at once: it makes you long for your old home, but also for your new one.

Life-changing events too, even if they don't involve physically leaving a home, can throw off your sense of home-ness and make you homeless all over again.

I have personally dealt with homesickness in many shapes and sizes, on several widely different occasions. I have expected it, prepared for it, but have also been taken wholly by surprise.

This week I publish the first article in a series on homesickness. Come back over the next couple of weeks to read the next installments. I am sure some of my personal story will be recognizable to you, and you may find my analysis useful and perhaps even comforting.