Not-Home Sickness: Writing About Not Always Happy

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happiness would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” –Carl Jung

A fellow expat blogger that I read, who is new to Australia, recently posted an insightful piece about the question of whether one should only write about happy things, or if it is better to write about both the happy and sad of the expat experience. I’ll admit that I am guilty of only writing about the happy adventures, and perhaps that does not present a fully rounded picture.

Reading this follows closely on the heels of a conversation that I had with a college friend (and blogger) who has been around the world as an international teacher, moving from locations as diverse as Guatemala, Kuwait and Shanghai every few years, thus she truly understands the ups and downs of international life upheavals.

She asked me if I was homesick during my first stint in Australia.

I had to think about homesickness in order to answer her seemingly simple question.

Did I miss my family and friends at home? Of course. But my American adult life has been fairly nomadic, as has the life of most of my compatriots, so I’m used to my loved ones being spread to the four corners and beyond. In fact, as I was leaving Florida, so were all of my closest friends – everyone off to differently green pastures; so, I would not have had my regular crew nearby, even if I’d stayed put. Plus, with Skype, Facebook, Twitter, AIM, and on and on, this distance from Australia rarely felt more daunting than the distance between me and my best friends in Atlanta or Boston. In Australia, I still listened to NPR and TBTL everyday. I still watched American TV online. I missed half & half, Ross, full-size Targets, and good pizza and Mexican food; but not a lot of other concrete things that I can think of.

But, I was sad on a regular basis.

My homesickness was not a missing of my particular home, because home has been a fluid concept, but of missing the feeling of home, altogether. I missed the comfort of napping on my Goodwill sofa with a me-shaped indent in it. I missed having tidy places for every kitchen utensil (and having all the kitchen utensils I needed). I missed having a regular sports bar and a regular gang to go with after work. I missed the familiarity of knowing just how far off my oven temperature is from normal, and what the air conditioner clicking on at night sounds like. I missed knowing who I would call if the car broke down and Partner-in-Crime was at work (not that I drive the car - I definitely missed driving). I missed knowing that Friday night meant drinks at Eric’s and Sunday meant newspaper and coffee downtown.

It takes a long time to establish this level of comfort, but even more so in a foreign country, I think. There are simply more variables between you and a sense of normalcy.

I’ve put in three months towards my new life, and I am far from feeling at home. I have a lot of adjusting left to do before I’m home in my apartment, home with friends, and home in my city. It gets easier, but then sometimes for no apparent reason, it suddenly gets harder. So, when I return to Sydney, I know that I’m in for more “not-home”-sickness. In the spirit of honesty about the journey, I’ll try to be mindful of sometimes sharing bits of the sad/frustrating/confusing parts, as well as all the happy stuff.