Not looking to worry anyone - generally I'm doing ok. But I find the phenomenon of homesickness interesting and it helps me to unpick the emotions so that I better understand them and am better prepared to stay strong when they hit - know thine enemy and all that...
I realised this week that my last post on homesickness only told half the story - the crying, moping, all-encompassing-glooming side. But sometimes, homesickness expresses itself in inexplicable rage and frustration. Sure there is still crying (when is there not?!) but the tears are bitter and it's less easily solved with a hug - mostly because I'm likely to punch the hugger.
The anger comes from an intense frustration at my self-perceived inadequacy and awkwardness. Angry because all the feelings of not-fitting, of loneliness and longing - of feeling like a shadow just following Jeremy around in his life - are just not me and I know that elsewhere there's a place where I feel bright and likeable and socially graceful (this may be self delusion, but it feels that way ok?!). I want to scream sometimes that 'this is not me' - this quiet shy shadow is not me. Most of the time I can push past the urge to introvert and force myself out in the open, and when I do I'm able to laugh and joke and forget my difference, but just the effort of having to do this angers me at times.
In these moments - where I feel so intensely out-of-place and so angry at this displacement when there's a place across the ocean where I truly belong - I become inarticulate and basically adopt the tactics of a small child when faced with total and utter powerlessness. I haven't yet laid down and thumped the floor but I'm pretty sure my face does go a shade near purple and feet have most definitely been stomped.
(I should make it clear here that all of the stomping is done in private and mostly inside my head. I'm not busy having temper tantrums in the middle of the street - Jeremy is the only witness and I'm so thankful that he recognises my rage as frustration and gives me the grace and space I need to calm and clear.)
There's nothing to be done but to be brave and get through this stage. If we work on the basis that the process of change is similar to the grief cycle, I figure that acceptance is just around the corner...right? (Although I have a feeling the process is not linear and these stages will reassert themselves a few times over.) In the meantime, understanding reasons behind why I want to scream sometimes means that I can move beyond behaving like a 5 year old.
Use your words Hannah, use your words.
You put it very well and I've gone through the exact same thing. It feels like you've lost all independence and sense of self. In time, it fades. Glad Jeremy is dealing well with it. My husband was decidedly difficult every time I had a homesick moment. He felt so bad that I felt bad that it made him anxious and he'd just say "You're obviously not happy, you should just go home". Which, of course, just made me furious!! In time, we got past that though and now I realize that my homesickness is for what WAS no what IS at home. And, we can always fly back once or twice a year!
ReplyDeleteGosh if Jeremy said that in those moments I'd either punch him or take him at his word and go jump on a plane!
ReplyDeleteAlways good to be told there is light at the end of the tunnel - it's hard to believe sometimes.
Do you think you guys will ever move back to the UK? We plan to in 5 years or so - although it's difficult to map out life that way - in my first few weeks here I made him promise we'd move back about 5 times a day!
AND you're also adjusting to living with your hubby, which is entirely different than what you've had before, so it changes your relationship and you're also adjusting to that. Double whammy of transition
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