Moving Stories 5 – Homesickness

by Vicki Jeffels on June 1, 2012

Today I am split in two.

St Heliers beach, Auckland

I am here. I am not here.

My feet are touching the English soil, and yet I wish my toes were dipped in New Zealand waters. The sky has clouded over and I am afflicted with a deep sense of grief for a life I’ve given away.

Homesickness doesn’t follow rhyme or reason. It comes upon me, out of the blue, like a madness. No, not as passionate as madness. It’s more a dull ache, an unsung waiata – a cry from the soul.

Perhaps this country’s Jubilee celebrations have sparked it. Thousands of Union Jack pennants stab my heart and reinforce my sense of dislocation, as I wander the streets or shops. I am still, after four years a foreigner here. I have a Union Jack mug but I cannot bring myself to fill it with this morning’s coffee. I reach for another cup instead and fill it with a bittersweet mixture of coffee and tears.

Perhaps this helplessness, this grief, stems from the argument I had with my Englishman. His angry words are like shards of glass splintering my memory. My mind gingerly touches over their ragged points. I could wound myself with them, if I lingered too long, and then I would bleed. Who knows when it would stop?

Yesterday, I sat in the wild English country garden of the local church. It dates back to the 16th century and despite standing for all this time, it has only recently been locked up to guard against vandalism. A sign of the times perhaps? People demonstrating against a God who has allowed their jobs to be sacrificed to the recession?

I sat in the garden, on a bench looking out beyond the wild flowers to the ancient oak and elderberry trees. I thought of my Mum and missed her, even though she’s not in Auckland, she’s in Brisbane. I thought of friends I missed, but most of all I missed the person I used to be. And as I sat there watching in the fading light an owl flew low and straight in front of me. He was magnificent, but he had no wisdom to dispense as he passed. I guess the wisdom and the answer lies inside of me.

What do I do, Mr Owl? What do I do?

Homesick people are not demonstrators. We don’t publicaly rail against our fear or hurt, we simply fade away into our own solitude.

What will happen next? How will I afford it? Why do I feel this way?

My answers are within. Maybe I just need to be quiet enough to hear them.

And maybe there is no reason at all for my homesickness beyond reading a story from home, or regretting that the weather has turned from ‘Auckland spring sunshine’ to English summer – i.e overcast and wet.

Silly things, not at all monumental.

And yet the sadness that engulfs me, is.

I’m not sure how to put my happy face on today. The grocery delivery guy is due soon, I need to make some calls in my business voice, without tears like marbles choking my throat; I need to pack the kids off to exams, and prepare a sponge for Jubilee weekend…

..I need to just keep on going.

I know from experience that there is only one way through this, and it is, through it.

I keep daydreaming about getting on that plane and dozing through time zones until I land in the city of sails. It’s been a year since I was last at home. Yes, I went to Australia in April last year, but I haven’t seen my home town – Auckland, New Zealand – since January 2011. It would make a huge difference if I could have that standard inclusion in a typical expat work package – one trip home per year. But I do not have an expat work package.

I wasn’t sent here, I chose to come. (Was it the right decision?)

Just as I’m choosing to return, one day. I have to. This wanderer has to stop wandering east of Eden.

I wish I knew how, when….. and who was coming home with me.

Image: Flickr CC

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sondyaustin/2504039814/sizes/s/in/photostream/

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Tagged as: depression, homesickness

Bavarian Sojourn

Beautiful post. Sending you a hug, it’s not easy is it…
- vegemitevix
  
  Thank you! It isn’t easy especially when you feel so isolated by your feelings of isolation. Only other expats really understand, I find.
http://twitter.com/headspaceblog Katriina

oh Vix. I know that terrible sadness so very well, and you write so poignantly about it. “I missed the person I used to me” literally brought tears to my eyes. Big hugs and lots of positive energy. Hang in there. I’ll be thinking of you.
- vegemitevix
  
  Thank you Katriina. I’m sure you know the carefree Antipodean spirit, that ‘she’ll be right’ attitude, that I’m referring to. Arohanui Vix x
http://and-here-we-are.blogspot.com Ariana Mullins

I hear you on the homesickness, Vix. I have to say, gray weather in late Spring really doesn’t help. We moved here almost a year ago, and have no plans yet for a visit to the USA. Our budget is not nearly adequate for such “luxuries.” And we have yet to welcome a visitor into our new lives. I think the key is to just feel it. And let it pass when it’s ready. Amazing how accurate the world “sickness” is for this feeling though, right?
- vegemitevix
  
  Oh you poor thing, I know exactly how that feels. Hang in there it will come.. the new life, I mean, complete with friends and trips home and all those other adventures. The only thing I can’t say with certainty, is that the homesickness will ever completely go. We just have to get through it. Vix x
http://www.anitalophile.com/ Cathy Powell

Oh Vicki. I really hear you on the homesickness issue. Sometimes I feel guilty for feeling that way, but then I am so far far away from where I came from and things are different, very different from that. Sometimes I crave familiar stuff. You are right though, the only way on, is through it. You just need to keep on, keeping on, and sometimes it is near impossible to do. I think I have proven myself to be stronger than I thought I was, by managing to do just that. Sending you a virtual hug I love your blog, thanks for sharing your personal thoughts. Have a great weekend
- vegemitevix
  
  Oh yes, the guilt. The guilt that I can’t quite make a go of it, that other people have, that somehow it isn’t the right fit for me, this life here. The guilt. I feel guilty, even admitting it. Funnily enough my Moodscope reading today was about resilience. I used to feel quite cynical about that saying ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. I used to think – ‘how f-ing strong do I have to be? I’ll be an Amazon by the time life has finished wiht me’. But you know what, there’s a lot to be said for resilience. I went out to the supermarket after writing this post, and I bought a Union picnic rug, some paper cups and a food chiller, for the trip up to London for the parade. If you can’t beat em…join em?
MidlifeSinglemum

I grieve for the life I gave away but had I kept it, I wouldn’t have the life I have now (including my daughter). I’ve said this before, home is a time not a place. If you went home now, I’m not sure you would find it there.
This is going to sound hard but, from what I’ve read from you, it doesn’t seem like a practical plan to be going back to live in NZ for the next few years at least – until the children are finished with school and uni. You have to make the life you are living now your ‘home’. For the present time this is your only home. You have to make it a happy place or you will waste your life pining.
On the bright side, when the children are grown and independent (not long now) you will be be able to go to Aus/NZ every year to visit. Maybe you’ll go for two months every winter (or summer) to escape the most depressing weather. Or maybe twice a year for six weeks. Work towards making that a viable option. It may turn out to be a good and satisfying solution.
- vegemitevix
  
  It definately is a good plan I agree. We do have limitations with school and Uni, and have a very slim window in which we must make up our minds where we will belong for the next few years. It may be here, it may be elsewhere, it may not be home. I agree that the home I’ve left is a time not a place, but I also feel a very real connection to the land and that I miss acutely. I cannot explain it. A few other people I’ve known (mainly Aussies and Kiwis) on Twitter have understood what I meant. The only way i can explain it is by saying it’s like that overwhelming sensation you have to kiss the ground when you step back onto safe ground.
  - MidlifeSinglemum
    
    I do understand – I have that feeling for England and especially the countryside. Good luck with whatever you decide.
uniquenique01

Big hugs and positive thoughts you are right the only way to get over it is to go through it although sometimes it seems to be made harder by the fact that we chose this life and to be honest if we went back it wouldn’t really be the same – once an expat always an expat it seems kind of like having a foot in each country with no place to put your bum ;~D. Keep on moving forward and enjoy what each day brings and allow yourself to miss things without the guilt, it is about the only way to deal with it.
- vegemitevix
  
  Oh you picked up the guilt I feel too! I have really tried and keep trying to fit in, but sometimes I just can’t seem to pull it off. It’s harder too because I am the only expat I know in my town hence the only one locally who feels like this. I am so grateful for the support of my online friends. Thank you xx
  - http://www.facebook.com/uniquenique01 Monique Devroeg
    
    I decided a while ago that it was impossible for me to fit in so now I just am me they either like me or they don’t, actually most of the time if I forget to talk slowly they don’t understand me at all they just nod their heads ;~D. I too find that I am very grateful for the presence of my online friends. After all for me home is where my heart is and that is definitely with my hubby and kids so this is where it is at for now.
    - vegemitevix
      
      I love that image of you talking slowly and them uncomprehending nodding. I think people are like that with me too sometimes, as I forget I have an accent.
http://bloggertropolis.blogspot.com/ Steve

Homesickness is like addiction. There is no cure. You have to learn to live it. Or choose to live without it forever… and the only way to do that is to head home. No matter how long you are here you will get bouts of this. And there us nothing to be said to make it better. Sending hugs.
- vegemitevix
  
  Thank you Steve. x
Amy

Wow, you have totally struck a chord In me with this post. I get days when I feel exactly like this (in reverse – missing UK, living in NZ). I think sometimes it’s harder if you’re a do-er. I am not a wallower, if something is wrong I fix it or change it…but you kind of have to hang on and let the homesickness wash over you. There is no quick fix. You wait out the intense wave to pass and then it dulls to nothing again and life settles sand you think , yes ; ‘on balance’ I’m happy. It will never be a total settled feeling for those of us torn between two places (even if we go home). If the intense wave doesn’t pass then that’s when it’s time to set the wheels of change in motion. Great post, thanks for writing it.
- vegemitevix
  
  Thanks for commenting Amy. I know that this is how we all feel from time to time, and I expect my Englishman will feel like this too if/when he moves back with me. We have a series called Moving Stories here – I don’t know if you’ve been reading it – but would you like to be involved?
reluctantexpat

Ahhhhhhhh, again you have hit the nail on the head…..F
Oh Vix, I hear you……….
I have lived here for EVER……with random bursts of trying to move back home (Aus) – I am married to an Englishman – and his work is here…
Nobody understands homesickness like a fellow expat. Even my family don’t get it (“but you are close to Paris!”) so I have learnt to bottle it up Agh! I now don’t really know where I belong – all I know is that my soul sings when the never ending (like you, self funded) Qantas flight touches down in Sydney – & I feel the “old me” return. I have done that hellish flight 24 times………and i feel my lifespan is shortened every time I return to the northern hemisphere…….
I play “Pollyanna” here, try not to berate the English ways, weather….I cringe when I hear expats being negative about their adopted country…….but I am not English. And I never intended to leave my beloved homeland. When I meet or hear of new romances where 2 different countries/hemispheres/cultures are involved, I cross my fingers for them………& quietly pray that my daughter doesn’t follow a life like mine…..
Like you, I was so very happy with the hot sunny weather we have enjoyed recently.. But I knew it wouldn’t last – the weather or the happiness….
It sounds trivial.
It isn’t.
Thanks for writing this. And huge Antipodean hugs to you my dear.
Xxx
It sounds so trivial. It isn’t.
- vegemitevix
  
  Thank you for your support. I know what you mean, I feel guilty about complaining about things in my adopted country, so much so I can’t share them with my English husband.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=694388664 Miriam Ingram

Oh my goodness, just read your post and can’t believe how you’ve just written all my feelings out for the world to see! I have been resisting the urge the last few days to post on my facebook status that I feel so homesick EVERYDAY and can’t stop thinking about my ‘home’. And I’ve been researching flights home and trying not to balk at the £10k price tag for our family of five (adults) to go back to NZ at Christmas. All the more poignant as our passports are in the UK Home Office with our Indefinite Leave to Remain application so life is totally in limbo. I want to nest, I want to travel, I want to plan. I feel so lonely without my friends. NOONE understands that permanent homesick lug in your heart than someone else who is also an expat. And then I love being in London at the same time. I still pinch myself that we are here. I feel guilty about my children’s future by what have we created by our choices to come here. Where will they live when they are adults? Will they be far away from me? ‘Home’ for them is here. Will they retain the NZ spirit, the connections and their ground roots from where they have come from?

One of my daughters and I always cry over Dave Dobbyn’s Welcome Home Song, which coincidentally we have just finished making a little video using it – talk about on the same wave length! I’ll post it up soon so you can take a peek.
- vegemitevix
  
  Please do put the video up Miriam, I’d love to see it. Are you still waiting for your immigration documents back from the UKBA? We’ve reached the point where son is hoping to go to Bristol in September and if he does that wil mean that when we head home I may be leaving my oldest here. I can’t comprehend that fully, we are so close..to say I’ll miss him is understatement. Thank you for your lovely comment Vix x
- vegemitevix
  
  I got most of the way through the video, until the scene of the fountain at Mission Bay not far from where we lived. I used to take the kids there for icecreams in the sun, when they were little. When that image came on I couldn’t hold it in any longer. Like you I love London, and know that I will probably be homesick for it when I leave here.
Carole

Kia kaha, girlfriend. Just hang in there, you will figure it all out.
- vegemitevix
  
  Thank you Carole. I hope so.
http://twitter.com/Adulcia Claudia McFie

Love that song. I find myself visualising a marae with mountains in the backdrop – somewhere near Kaikoura perhaps? Not one I’ve ever visited in person, but a collage my imagination has put together to mean “home”.
- vegemitevix
  
  I loved the video that accompanies it too, that seems to say ‘please come to NZ we want you here’. My memories of Kaikoura are of eating freshly caught kaikoura (crayfish) with bread and butter against that stark mountainous backdrop – soul (and stomach) stirring.
http://www.catchingthemagic.com/ Sarah

BIG HUGS hun x You have every right to feel this way – we all do, as expats, from time to time. How can we not live without part of our heart feeling torn. I’m fifteen years into living in New Zealand and most of the time I’m coping with ‘expat’ life – but – just like you – I have moments of feeling utterly torn. As you know, we may be journeying to another country to live before the year is out. I expect I’ll feel home-sickness for not one – but two countries – then!!! Hope the weekend brightens up for you and happiness finds you x Lots of love, Sarah x
- vegemitevix
  
  Thanks Sarah, I know I feel silly sometimes when I reflect that I haven’t been away for very long, certainly not compared to you! I do wonder though whether part of it is homesickness for a way of life, and that’s something I want to try and fix. My life in NZ was more social, less insular, more outdoorsy less stuck inside. I miss that acutely.
Jacq

Gawd, thats made *me* homesick and I don’t think I’ll ever go ‘back home’. Hpefully it’s all the flag waving and you feel happier soon.
- vegemitevix
  
  Thanks Jacq for your support but sorry the post made you feel homesick. x
glasshalffull

home is where the heart is
- vegemitevix
  
  It is indeed, but sometimes are heart is rent in two.
Leonie

Oh I too know this feeling so well. As a Kiwi living in Oz. All I want to do is go back home. And its not because its a horrible place to live or anything. I.just.miss.home.
It’s so hard to express that feeling, you have done it so well. And that Dave Dobbyn song gets me everytime.
We have been trying to move home for the last 12 months but sadly for two years my hubby has applied for jobs back in NZ and only one interview in that time. So disappointing.
Kia Kaha.
- vegemitevix
  
  I’m so sorry that you understand so keenly what homesickness feels like. I lived in Oz for about 18 months and felt I was homesick there too, from time to time. It seemed so odd, because so much of the lifestyle was so familiar and in fact my family are all there, but for me it just lacked that smell of home. It’s as if I have the actual land imprinted on me, it pulls me home. Like you my husband will have many more work opportunities in Australia than in NZ but I long for home, and I just hope and pray that the right oportunity comes up for all of us there. Thank you so much for visiting Vegemitevix and for taking the time to comment. Would love to see you this way again. Vix x