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There’s no place like home… but where is home?

Home is… safe… where the heart is… where you hang your hat… where you are comfortable enough to walk around naked…where the pants are stretchy and the wifi connects automatically…a person or place you want to return to, over and over…where your story begins…wherever we are together…

Home seems to be some magical place that only exists in our minds. We build houses, of all sorts, fill them with our things and call it home. Then we collect our stuff, leave that place and put our stuff in a new place and suddenly we have a new home. The magic place that gave us so much comfort no longer exists; you cannot go home again, as they say. So does that mean our stuff defines our home? Is it the comfort of the familiar? Perhaps it is the people around us that make us feel at home.

So, what happens when you leave the building, the stuff, and the people behind and move to the other side of the world? Nearly two years ago, when I moved from my house, sold most all of my stuff and left America with six suitcases, my husband, my daughter, a growing pregnancy, and as small amount as expectations as I could manage, I did not ask myself these questions about home. I knew that we were going to have a roof and a bed and comforts; I thought that the magic of home would travel with me and be in this new place.

Homesickness is a funny thing. It creeps up when you are not paying attention and grabs you by the whole body. There is no medicine or treatment to help, it is hard even to diagnose. Suddenly the things that used to bother you about the place you left, like the scratchy carpet, the barking dog next door, even shoveling snow or mowing the lawn sound like heaven compared to cement floors, new annoying sounds, and not having tasks to keep yourself busy. The food, the weather, the smells, the language, everything that is different can trigger homesickness.  So I grasped onto the familiar, my husband, my daughter, facebook, books, writing my blog. I held onto to these things so tight, without realizing that my hands were too full with the old to experience the new.

People kept telling me how well I was adapting. Was I adapting well? Maybe. I really do not know. I hid behind my pregnancy. I was completely dependent on my husband and his family. I felt like I gave up my freedom and I was now stuck in this new place, and I resented that I had freely given up who I was. I would kick and scream (sometimes literally) against my new life, resenting everything, desperate to go home. Then those feelings would pass and I would step back and see where I was, I would actually look at the people and the things around me and I would get overwhelmed with the idea of excitement. There are so many possibilities, so many things to see and I needed to do something in that moment, to experience this new place. I would go out with someone, swimming shopping, family’s house, I got a (short lived) job. Then a holiday would come, holidays are the worst for homesickness, and I would spiral back into the resentment and regret that are the symptoms of homesickness.

Sakib experienced homesickness when he first moved to America and did not find his home in Minnesota until he went back to Bangladesh for a visit and then returned to America. He suggested I try the same trick. My visit to Minnesota, to home, was wonderful. I did most everything that I missed. My first time driving after a year away was the best. I went to Target (which was awesome too), and then drove home. There was very little traffic and it was wonderful. I smiled the whole way. I was in Minnesota for three months and I knew I would miss Sakib, and I did, but I was surprised to find that I missed other things as well. I actually got a little homesick for my home and family in Dhaka. I never believed that it would happen. It was nothing compared to the homesickness I felt for Minnesota, but it was there.

It has been six months since I left America. In the last six months I have done more here than I did the whole year prior. I take rickshaws on my own, I have multiple job opportunities, I go shopping on my own, I have made more friends, and I no longer feel that the walls are closing in. I still look forward to the day when we move back to America but I am no longer desperate for it. People keep asking if I will visit America again this year. Before I would have screamed ‘yes’ from the top of our building for the whole city to hear but now I want to travel, I want to see other places and I want the people I miss to join me in those travels.  

So, what makes a home, the place, the stuff, the people? I used to think it was these things. Now I think a magic fairy follows people to their new homes and sprinkles magic dust on a place to make it a home and the farther you go the longer it takes her little wings to carry her to your new place and sometimes she may get lost along the way so you have to go back again to help her along. It is really the only logical explanation I can come up with.