One of the definite downsides about living abroad is the homesickness that always pops up. I guess it happens to everyone living far away from home, but mine always comes when a few specific things happen.
It’s especially bad after my family comes to visit. They were just here, but they’ve left now. I always miss my parents a ton, and even my ridiculous cats. It always kicks in a little while after they leave and go back home.
Meet the Ginger Menace and his sidekick, the Grey Goose (because he’s so silly). How could you not love two such grumpy animals?
Then, I always get a tiny dose when my friends go home to visit. Most of them live much closer to home, so it’s only a question of a few hours for them. For me, it’s an entire day of traveling, which makes me a little bit jealous.
Next, it happens when my apartment is empty. Usually, I can distract myself with my 5 roommates (plus any wandering visitors), but they tend to have a high turnover rate as I live with mostly Erasmus students. If you’ve seen L’Auberge Espagnole, it’s exactly like that. Last week, it was crammed full – we had 15 visitors! Four of my roommates just moved out, and took all their visitors with them. It’s a little quiet and lonely around my piso right now!
It looks kind of like this instead of crammed with people – sad! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It also kicks in when I’m feeling a little down, and lately I’ve been a bit stressed, sad, and lonely. The weird weather isn’t helping either – it’s been pretty grey all week, and all I want to do is laze around on the beach in the sun. Hopefully this weird feeling will go away soon.
And of course, after a long period of doing lots of stuff and having exciting trips planned, there’s always a ‘travel comedown.’ I just wrapped up a month of traveling on the weekends, and although it’s nice to have a break to relax, I’m a bit lost without any exciting events on the horizon to look forward to.
It’s days like these when I wish Barcelona were a whole lot closer to California. Actually, it’s not just days like these – I wish that a lot of the time!
Missing this…
Any other people living far away from home have tips for dealing with homesickness?
Besos!
-Jess
things that helped me: skyping and emails with friends and family, catching up on American TV, planning another trip/maximizing your time there (when you get back, reverse homesickness will kick in which is equally weird!)
Good tips, I’ve definitely been working on maximizing my time here and it’s helping a bit. Thanks!
Cool cats!
Thanks! I like them too 🙂
You checked out my blog. I checked out your profile page. Loved your bio. Love your blog. Love this post. What more can I do/say? I LOVE Barcelona! 🙂
Haha thanks for stopping by and for your kind words! I love Barcelona too 🙂
I am in a homesick tail spin. It’s at that point where I don’t even like to talk to people at home because they are having fun without me. I haven’t been back home in 18 months and I think the only thing that is going to cure it is a trip back home.
I agree with Gilian. American TV helps.
Urgh, I know what you mean. I can’t believe you haven’t been home in 18 months! Do you have plans to go home soon?
American T.V. and a few days of ‘sulking’ it is, I think. :p
Yeah. I get to spend a month at home in December. And, moving to a new city in China in the mean time, so I will be sufficiently distracted and hopefully it will go by fast. Minimize the sulking if I can help it.
I love traveling, but being homesick is definitely one of the downsides. What helped me were calls/sms/skype sessions with friends and family, writing postcards or writing in my travel journal. Others things like organising my travel photos when I’m down really helped (and brought back memories of the places I’ve been and how lucky I am) and also making new friends (going to coffee shops, checking on couchsurfing and other such websites for meetings of likeminded travelers etc). It also helped just wandering around the place I was in, a good distraction. 🙂 x.B
CouchSurfing sounds like a great idea. And wandering around a bit helps – it’s making me appreciate where I am rather than where I’d like to be at the moment. Thanks for the tips!
I feel like having an empty house is the worst. My fiance and I are doing long distance so we only get to see each other every two months or so, and every time I come home from the airport after one of our ‘reunions’, I break down because it’s just so empty and the symbolism of being alone is overwhelming.
Sorry that was kind of depressing — I’ve found forcing myself to host couchsurfers and going out to meet friends puts me in a better mood!
Haha no worries, everyone has depressing moments! I like the Couch Surfers idea, maybe I’ll do some of that soon. Thanks for the tip.
I usually just go ahead and embrace that feeling, since it’s no use to try to ignore it- it will catch up with you eventually. Sometimes it helps to make or review a list of your goals and steps of how to attain them- when I don’t have any trips coming up, this helps me regain a sense of what I can look forward to, and what I should be doing next.
Enjoy having all that space to yourself! 🙂
Haha maybe I should just give into it, and enjoy a bit of a quiet moment. 🙂
Do it. Just as much as it will suck right now, it will be just that much more awesome to have new roommates or a visitor, or to accomplish that goal that doesn’t have to do with a specific trip. <3
Yeah being homesick is not fun. I was home in NY this past week and I am seeing my parents again in a few weeks so I’m not dealing with that right now. However, the fall was very tough for me–drama with the English teaching assistant job at the school I was at, my grandmother dying, and being sick literally 2 months in a row. At Christmas, I did not want to get back on the plane to go back to Madrid–It felt like I had just gotten home and after a tough couple of months, the last thing I wanted to do was leave my family again.
However now that my time in Spain is winding down, I know I am going to be homesick for Madrid! Being home for a week was nice but I know my family is going to drive me up the wall. I have a feeling I will be heading abroad again soon enough–not necessarily Spain though.
I always like to distract myself from homesickness with funny Youtube videos or funny movies. 😀
Ha, sounds like fall 2011 was a terrible time all-around – I had the same kind of stuff going on. :/
I know what you mean about anticipating homesickness. Urgh, we just can’t win! In the meantime, funny movies sounds like a plan!
OK, mailing family and friends is outside of realm of possibility, and as for moving California closer to Barcelona … also a can’t do. That said we are building a community of people to help bring the little things we (expats) miss closer together. The idea is that if one expat (or local) in one place can send stuff someone else wants to another place than we can all get those little things that make us feel at home. Yeah, I know that the expat way is to “immerse” yourself in the culture, but sometimes you just need an OREO. I also know that many of us have families that send care packages but realistically we can’t always bother them nor depend on them at all times. Well, anyway if you should feel homesick again drop us a line. Maybe a bit of home is just an email away. Cheers!
What a great idea! That sounds great. Likewise, if you know any homesick Spaniards, I’m happy to join in the community. Thanks very much for the offer.