Homesickness

I'm not feeling particularly homesick right now, so I figure now is a good time to write about it. I can't write when the homesickmist descends - at those times I don't think I could attach words to the feeling - they'd slip off and meld in with the grey and gloopy gloom.

Homesickness is one of those terms which means nothing unless you experience it. Heart-break is another, along with love-lorn and green-with-envy. A special class of cliches which suddenly break into 3D given the glasses of experience - much less pretty and much more heart-wrenching (oops, there's another) than Avatar.

In fact, I think it's hard to talk about one cliche without employing multiple others - so that ultimately you only talk to a select group of people who have had a cliched experience...of course the fact that they're cliches means that applies to a majority of people, so that doesn't limit the communication too much.

The closest thing I've experienced to homesickness is heartbreak. I suppose it is heart-break in a way. A grief for loss of 'home' - of familiarity and the people who reinforce our identity. We spend so much of our lives trying to stand out, to be different, notable, extraordinary. With homesickness I find myself longing to be ordinary - to speak without immediately distinguishing myself as 'different', to be part of the crowd, to be sure of how things work and where I fit within them.

The other similarity between homesickness and heartbreak is the tendency for it to hit you out of nowhere. I'll be happy - cooking or cleaning or joking around - and then out of nowhere I'll feel entirely flattened, the air sucked out of me (these cliches are unavoidable it seems) and I'll want to sit on the floor and cry.

Jeremy is getting used to these sudden swings of mood. Generally all I need is a hug to give me the strength to push back the gloopy-gloom and resume the happy. But the way it swoops in from nowhere means I never feel completely safe - like sleeping with one eye open for danger - I'm waiting for the day when I fully close my eyes and feel at home in the moment. I'm scared of that day too - because does that mean that I've forgotten 'home' - that I've switched my allegiances and betrayed my history? Or will it just be that I've transferred what 'home' means onto Jeremy and the family unit that is 'us'?

The latter doesn't make me want to cry, so I'll go with that.