Homesickness During My Watson Year So Far
After being away from home for five months, I was expecting to feel a lot more homesick than I have been feeling. I missed Thanksgiving at home and my birthday. I'm preparing for a Christmas and New Years away from my usual traditions, friends, and family. When I have shared with other people that I am traveling for an entire year by myself, moving every couple of weeks/months, and not going back to the states at all during this time, I get a lot of looks of envy but also concerned queries about how I am dealing with the separation. And, how my family is dealing with it too. I can't speak for them, but up until probably this week, my answer was that I haven't really felt homesick.
Now, I have a feeling that this can read as making me seem cold, unfeeling, and even a bit harsh. But, I just felt like I was constantly so busy doing fulfilling work, having so many new and wonderful experiences, meeting interesting people, and exploring interesting places that there weren't moments for me to feel homesick. But, I was imagining homesickness as a deep desire to be back at home. I was thinking about homesickness as the feeling that I wanted to stop what I was doing and hop on a plane and fly back to Cleveland, Ohio. I didn't have that feeling. Nor have I experienced anything really close to that. Sure, I have missed my friends and my family. But, I also recognize how quickly these past five months have passed and how rapidly, I'm sure, the next seven will too. Plus, I have been able to stay in contact over WhatsApp, email, Instagram DMs, and Facebook Messenger so it is not like I am completely cut off from all of the people back home. My blog and my Instagram also help me feel like I am maintaining a connection with important people in my life, even if we aren't together in person.
In reality, my only experience with homesickness comes from movies, what I have seen other people deal with, and moments as a child calling my parents in the middle of the night to come to pick me up from sleepovers at friends' houses.
It dawned on me this week though, that I do think I have been feeling homesick, a bit, so far during my travels and, surprisingly, it just hasn't occurred to me. Now that also seems like a strange thing to say, I'm sure. But, this is really my first time away from home for an extended period of time. I went to college 20 minutes away from my house. And, I had a car on campus. So, not only was I in a familiar place, but I could also go back and sleep in my own bed, visit my grandparents, or stop home if my mom was making a dinner I particularly enjoyed, whenever I wanted, really. I didn't do any of those things that often, but I did more than people who were from California, for example. Even when my parents moved to New Mexico, I still talked to at least one of them almost every day. (Yes, I am that type of daughter.)
For me, I have found homesickness in little moments. They are temporary and fleeting but are strong enough to produce a momentary feeling of longing.
Homesickness has felt like never quite feeling satisfied with the pictures I have from my adventures. Any photo I have of myself is either a self, taken with my watch camera self-timer, or snapped by a stranger. It is surprisingly limiting. Plus in the photos of me, I am alone. Every now and then, I will look at the pictures and wish that I could have asked someone around to take just one more or that I could have had someone there to advise me to modify my pose a bit because I wouldn't like the way that I was holding my head. Photos are also always less awkward when there are other smiling faces in the frame with yours. At the same time, though, it is so cool to have so many wonderful pictures of myself in front of some stunning backdrops. At home, I am usually the one behind the camera, so forcing myself to get in front of it and make the most of the beautiful scenery usually causes the other feelings to dissipate pretty quickly.
Homesickness has felt like having to constantly ask for more context in my family group chat on WhatsApp because there I am only getting every 2nd, 5th, or 10th life update, rather than just being consistently in the know of what is happening. When my siblings and I lived apart from each other in the past, our knowledge of what was going on in each others' lives came from being informed about different minor or mundane events through our parents or very impromptu, but very long, FaceTime catch-ups. Long and impromptu FaceTime calls are not really the most practical or possible form of communication when living in two different countries, time zones, and work/school schedules. Plus, I don't even have FaceTime access at the moment and often I don't have consistent enough WiFi for video calls. In the time I have been away, for example, I have video chatted with my parents three times, with my sister joining for one of those. And, schedules have not worked to have any calls with any other member of my family. So, it is safe to say that this year I am perpetually out of the loop and even after I am home I am sure I will still discover things I did not know about from this year much, much later.
Homesickness has felt like some mornings wishing for just one extra shirt option when getting dressed. And, sure, I could always go out and buy one... But, it really has less to do with wanting another shirt to add to my rotation of four short sleeves and three long sleeves. It is about having access to all of the typical choices and options that I have at home and not having to wear a long-sleeve shirt in 80º weather because my short sleeves are in desperate need of washing. I will say, though, that I feel like I did a good job choosing which clothing articles to bring with me in my minimalist clothing packing, and not all of it will I actually want to burn upon re-entry to the United States. I also foresee a solid closet cleanout when I get back home because I do have way more clothes than I actually need, I have realized.
Homesickness has felt like ignoring an ever-increasing to-do list when I get home from my hospital visits in the afternoons/evenings because I am too exhausted from a day of struggling through conversations in Spanish to do anything else that requires mental energy. My productivity level here is probably about 1/5 of what it was in New Zealand and likely 1/8 of what it was back in the US. The homesickness feeling comes up through the pressure I put on myself to be doing more, explore more, and generally be making more out of this experience than what I am doing now. It shows in the guilt I place on my own shoulders when I do take an evening off, don't check off as many things on my to-do list, or spend twice the amount of time that I anticipated writing a blog post. But, then I get a text from someone saying that they just read that blog post and found it really interesting and learned something new. Or, I have a conversation in Spanish and I am not asked to repeat myself once. Or, I am invited to do something after work and I say "yes," ignoring my to-do list, which is something that I would rarely, if ever, do back at home.
Homesickness has felt like seeing really interesting new recipes pop up on my Instagram feed or on YouTube recommended list and saving the link but knowing I'll likely forget about it when I actually have the ability to bake again. For a moment, I am transported to my kitchen, in my mind, surrounded by familiar scents and scenes. A countertop of my assortment of gluten-free flours (which will all have to be reinvested in upon my arrival home as the ones that were there are surely either expired, already in the trash, or both). I know where every ingredient, dish, and utensil is located and I don't have to worry about taking up too much space or making too big of a mess because I am in my own home and making a treat to share, of course.
Homesickness has also felt like eating basically the same meals for the past two months because I found an assortment of gluten-free products that I like and that are easily accessible to me. I know how to cook or assemble them, in the case of me switching between cheese, meat, crackers, or sandwiches for lunch daily. I don't have to worry about fumbling around a kitchen that doesn't belong to me in the search of the spice, utensil, or piece of cooking equipment that I need. Now, to be fair with this one, I am a creature of habit. Even in the US, I would go through periods of eating the same meals often, and, usually, my grocery orders varied very little from week to week.
Homesickness has felt like seeing a beautiful plant at a street market for $2 and knowing that I'd buy it if I was at home. But, here, I just have to walk past it and keep moving on with my day. This may seem like it tops the list for the strangest example that made the cut for my compilation of bizarre experiences. But, at home, I have so many plants... And, I love taking care of them, displaying them in cool ways, and bringing home new ones to add to the family. I recruited my aunt to care for them while I was in Connecticut for my Child Life Practicum and my siblings to look after them for this year. Going a year without adding a new plant buddy to the collection is a surprisingly difficult task for me.
Homesickness has felt like taking a metro and a bus to get to the airport to spend 3+ hours walking between the 3 different customs offices, begging them to help me try to get the package my parents mailed in November before I leave the country. This may seem like an absurd action to take, but I didn't stop there. The following Monday, I didn't have work and I put every research skill I gained in college to the test to find the most obscure phone numbers to call to talk to actual humans to determine the whereabouts of my package and determine how to get it ASAP. This included, but is not limited to, texting with a Chilean customs officer over WhatsApp, calling the sorting branch for the Chilean Post office for which the woman had to ask me several times how I got the phone number because it is not a public number, being directed to speak to the head supervisor of the Chilean Post office phone lines to present my case (and sob story) to learn that my package had just been moved out of the sorting facility and successfully onto the next leg of its journey, and convincing the staff to give me a verbal guarantee that I would be able to get this package before my departure. And, I did all of this successfully in a language that I learned formally for only 3 weeks. I think it was like one of those cases where a mother lifts a car to save her child. I am also happy to report, that I did, in fact, get the package the day after I made all of the phone calls. Now, who knows if the power of my sob story was to thank, I annoyed the workers so much that they wanted to stop dealing with me, or if the package would have arrived on my doorstep the following day with or without all of my effort. I'm going to choose to say that I had a part to play in getting the package as soon as I did, though. Especially because it is Christmas time and so many people are getting shipments at the moment!
Finally, homesickness has felt like finding it challenging to say goodbye each time I prepare to head to my next stop and the next leg of my journey. So far in my project, I have moved around, either physically or in terms of who I am partnering with for the project, between every week and every six weeks. Six weeks. That is the longest amount of time that I have had day-to-day consistency. And that is coming to an end in about five days, as I say farewell to La Fundación Para La Infancia Ronald McDonald and my Chilean AirBnB host who has been so lovely to me.
Thinking ahead about my plans to come, this may be the longest bit of time I stay in one place and work with the same folks for the entire duration of my project year. Even though when it comes time to leave, most often, I have only known the place or the people for a mere number of days, it is still hard to part ways. It feels like leaving home again. I found safety, consistency, comfort, routine, and community during the time I spent, however short, with the people and places that I have to leave. Then, I am forced to go out again into the unknown. This is a year of constantly meeting new people and being unknown myself. But the feeling of being unknown seems to last much shorter now than it has in the past for me. With that, this is also a year of finding family, friends, mentors, advisors, and more all around the world.
Both parts are hard. Going into new unfamiliar situations and leaving ones that have become familiar, even if the gap between those moments spans only a handful of hours. I hope to stay connected with all of the amazing people I meet this year and all of the people who are helping make this experience possible and as fulfilling and life-changing as it is for me. But, logically, I know that I won't be able to do that with everyone. I know that some of the people who I am leaving behind as I go to my next stop won't ever fully recognize the profoundness of the impact they have made on me and my life. And, I know for some, when we say goodbye, it isn't the sightly softer "See you later!" or "We will catch up again soon!" It is a true "Goodbye."
And, an "I'm so glad to have met you. Thank you for everything."
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