Wednesday morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. From the time my feet hit the floor every thing agitated me. Sounds, smells, everything. Reminds me a lot of early pregnancy..but no.. it was..homesickness. My poor husband got the brunt of most of it.
By mid day, I’d managed to do only a small portion of my jobs for the day. For some reason my whole body felt heavy, and I was moving so slow. Am I getting a cold? I wondered. At one point I said to Keith, “I don’t know what is going on with me today.” And then it hit me. It started right after I got out of bed. But my morning routine was different this day. Before I even got out of bed-I called my mom to wish her a happy birthday.
Being 8 hours ahead of someone you love so deeply is strange. They’re going to bed, when you’re waking up. You have to stay up late, or get up early, to juggle quality time. This morning I woke up extra early to be the first to wish her happy birthday (and technically it was still the previous night for her!) To clarify, it was a great conversation, positive, happy. So it didn’t even occur to me that’s the reason my day got off course.
This is one of the strangest realities of living far from where you began. You can be truly content where you are and simultaneously ache for somewhere, someplace…someone else. The strangest part for me, is how my body responds to this type of homesickness. When I was 6 years old, I was moved from my moms to my dads, across the country. California to the East Coast. I’d spend my childhood back and forth between the two. I saw my mom. On Christmas. Over Summer. It’s all I knew growing up. So to be so far from my family now, almost hits that deep ache I felt since 6 years old. I guess I’ve been a long distance daughter most of my life.
But it’s not just birthdays that can trigger this feeling. It’s missing out on family get togethers, holiday traditions, our girls growing up far from their cousins. It’s the day you get a call that a loved ones passed, or that a parent has a diagnosis. But I chose this, this time. That’s the part that’s hard for me to process..because it feels heavier on days that I’m missing my sister, my parents, my best friend. It’s like a guilt trip I put on myself.
Don’t get confused–I absolutely, truly, and fully love the life we have abroad. I’m fully confident and proud of all the decisions we’ve made to get here. I don’t for a second want to undo the life we’ve built here. I don’t want to “move home” (and to even figure out where that is..is a whole different conversation!), but there are times that I wish my worlds could overlap.
We have found home here, and while it’s on the other side of the world, we have friends. Real, good friendships. We have a home that we’ve built together, just the four of us, and I wouldn’t change it. When we first got to the UK, my youngest was only 8 months old. She started walking here. Both of my girls have only ever gone to school here, there are big life milestones and memories that this far away home has given us. This place holds a culture that’s becoming part of who they are, and there are things and people here that we would grieve if we left too.
We make it work, with regular facetimes, and calls. We love the Marco Polo app that keeps us connected. We create a culture of home here, by reminding our girls regularly since they were born, “whenever we’re together..that’s where we call home.” and in all seasons, “Wherever God calls us, is where we go.”
So, perhaps the hardest part of living abroad isn’t discovering that you’ve left home, but that you now have more than one. And maybe, thats why the miles between us can ache without making me want to leave.
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