A Sunday Post

As I was sitting in Church this afternoon, the realization that I was homesick washed over me like a wave on the sand. It was gentle and subtle, but nevertheless it had force. I'm not terribly sad or anything, just a little bereft of my homeland.

I’ve been enjoying being in Madrid and learning Spanish. It’s so much fun to master a word or a construction, and I enjoy pantomiming words and actions so that I can understand and be understood. But it’s wearying. I miss understanding people clearly, not having to correct other people’s bad grammar. More than that, I miss the familiarity of the United States and life there. I miss having the confidence to ask where the hand soap is (because I can say “hand soap” in English; I forgot it was “jabon” in Spanish), and knowing that I will be awkward at social gatherings because I'm awkward in general, not because I'm awkward and I can't speak the language.

I miss things like hugging my college friends every night before I go to bed. I really miss Reesie because I haven’t seen her in-person since Christmas. I even missed high school earlier today. I remembered getting ice cream one snowy day in January, and the feeling of wearing my school sweater and skirt. I miss the simplicity and security of that time.

I haven’t missed my family too much. I do miss being able to talk with them whenever I like, and I hate not getting to talk with my sister frequently. Otherwise, I’ll see them again. It’s inevitable. Sure, there will be Christmas, and vacations, and summers, and social gatherings. But there's more to it than that. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, I believe I’m stuck with them for time and all eternity. The time that I’m spending here in Spain, and then afterwards in Scotland, is transient. Coming home for Christmas is the same thing, too: a wonderful, necessary ritual that only lasts for a little while before it’s gone. It’s the pattern of this life: it is short and transient. The cyclical nature of life is why I don’t feel quite so far away from my home and family. However, I do feel that I’m missing something, and whether I am in Madrid, Spain, or at Home with my family and friends I love, I am not wholly home. A quote that my cousin posted on his blog a little while back reflects that feeling:

“There is within each of us a giant struggling with celestial homesickness” – Howard W. Hunter

I believe that that is so true. As a child smaller than I am now, I used to pretend that there were other worlds out there that we could not get to with our limited brains and technology and knowledge. I was from another world, another dimension, one which was really my home. That world was special, and I was special in that world. I know that I am not alone in thinking about this – just look at the plot structure for 70% of adult fiction books today. (It used to be 90% until Twilight hit the market. Now books about vampires have 20% of the market.) I am aware that young adult literature is a negotiation of the transition between childhood and adulthood, but I think there might be more to it. In childhood, we still think about an other place where we really feel we belong. Then those thoughts dissolve after time and we forget about those other worlds and possibilities and settle for life in this world. This world is good, but there are no fabulous crested dragons or warrior princesses or keys to unimaginable power just by unlocking chakras in your brain.

In my personal experience, my vivid imagination has faded to shades of sepia and marmalade, but the feeling still remains that I’m only passing through here. After this world, there’s one where I am special, where I do belong, where I can have dragons pull my chariot as I fly through the sky. Okay, the dragons aren’t really important, but I like thinking about them all the same.

The point of this post is for me to talk about missing familiar people and places, and reassuring the rest of you (Coyote) that I am having a good time here and learning new things.

Photo credit: James Vernacotola